“What to stream: Bit Playas…”
““I want to make a show with no white people,” is how Kris Siddiqi pitched his web series Bit Playas to CBC. The show follows Ahmed (Siddiqi) and Leon (Nigel Downer) as they spend their days chasing minor roles and commercial parts across Toronto, all the while dealing with racism inside and outside of the casting room.”
— The Varsity
“When his father died, Charlie Tyrell realized he knew next to nothing about him. Tyrell and his reticent father hadn’t been close; as a young adult, Tyrell had been waiting for “the strange distance he felt between them to close,” as he describes it in his short documentary, My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes.”
— The Atlantic
“CBC is the network with the most scripted shows featuring leads of colour, like new sketch comedy series called Tall Boyz and sitcom Bit Playas, about two actors of colour (played by Kris Siddiqi and Nigel Downer) struggling to deal with the “soft racism” in the entertainment world.”
— Refinery29
“With this film, I was doing something else. I spent a year getting to know my dad in an unusual way.”
“Filth City takes inspiration from Rob Ford to tell a story about power.”
— CBC
“I began with True Dating Stories. Accompanied by tongue-in-cheek recreations, comely young people describe their worst encounters. Phelisha relates how her first date with a seemingly nice bartender nosedived when he got her name tattooed on his inner lip. Glenn, a personal trainer, disses a ‘roid rager who kicked him out of his car. ”
— Globe and Mail
“Bit Playas leads digital media nominations with six nominations…”
— Global News
“LaRue’s True Dating Stories renewed, acquired in the U.S.”
— Playback
“…the show is a sort of Lynchian stew of the absolutely mundane and the totally horrific.”
- Slate
“Amazon acquires three seasons of Gayl Pile. Match made in heaven? The e-commerce giant picked up the series about a home shopping channel host for its U.K., German and Japanese Prime Video service.”
— Playback
“DARK & ENIGMATIC ‘BLACKOUT’ SERIES HITS YOUTUBE THIS MONTH. Blackout is a documentary web series focusing on sleeping disorders such as sleep paralysis, insomnia, and sleepwalking.”
— Modern Horrors
“Canadian shorts named to 2019 Oscars shortlist: My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes, which follows Tyrell as he tries to better understand his emotionally distant late-father through the personal belongings he left behind, is shortlisted in the Documentary Short Subject category.”