'Sort Of' - On set with Bilal Baig ('Sabi') and Kaya Kanashiro ('Violet'). Courtesy of Abacus Media Rights.
Abacus Media Rights (AMR), a member of the Amcomri Media Group, has acquired the international distribution rights for the brand-new CBC original comedy series Sort Of (8 x 30’), produced by Sienna Films which began production in Toronto in October.
This coming-of-age story, created by Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo, follows the journey of Sabi Mehboob (Baig), a gender-fluid millennial who straddles various identities from a sexy bartender at an LGBTQ bookstore/bar to the youngest child in a large Pakistani family, to the de facto parent of a downtown hipster family. Produced with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, Sort Of is executive produced by Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo (Save Me), Sienna Films’ (Cardinal) Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny, and directed by Filippo and Renuka Jeyapalan (Big Girl).
Jonathan Ford, Managing Director, AMR, comments: “We are enormously proud to be selling this compassionate, original programme. It’s a pleasure to be working with Sienna Films again, and to be representing a new, thought-provoking comedy that has real relevance to our world today – addressing the lives of young adults as they struggle with the complexities of gender and diversity.”
Sort Of also stars Gray Powell (Hudson & Rex), Amanda Cordner (Baroness Von Sketch Show), Ellora Patnaik (Schitt’s Creek), Grace Lynn Kung (Transplant), Supinder Wraich (The 410), Kaya Kanashiro, Aden Bedard, Gregory Ambrose Calderone (This Movie is Broken) and Alanna Bale (Cardinal), with guest stars Becca Blackwell (Ramy, High Maintenance) and Cassandra James.
Written by Baig and Filippo with Jenn Engels, Ian Iqbal Rashid, and Nelu Handa, Sort Of begins when Sabi’s best friend 7ven (Cordner) presents them with an opportunity to live and find themself in the “queerest place in the galaxy”. Sabi instead makes the decision to stay and care for the kids they nanny after their mom has a serious bike accident. Do they regret it? Sort of. Sort Of exposes the labels we once poured ourselves into as no longer applicable… to anyone.
