Canadian TV productions and online series are thriving, with performers like Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on Netflix’s Never Have I Ever, Transplant, the CBC/HBO Max smash Sort Of, and Kim’s Convenience, which spawned Marvel’s, Simu Liu. On Sunday, MADE | NOUS awarded Maitreyi Ramakrishnan with the Radius Award, which recognises Canadians “making waves globally.”
The prize highlights the influence Canadians can have on the whole world, which is great. “I am honoured and grateful to have this platform to talk to audiences of all ages and races worldwide.”
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, star of
“I want to keep making you proud.”
Kim’s Convenience Legacy
When Kim’s Convenience ended, many criticised the circumstances behind the show’s finale. While the cast of Kim’s Convenience acknowledged that not everything was perfect, actors Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (Appa) and Jean Yoon (Umma) said their participation on the programme changed their lives.
“The sky’s the limit due of Kim’s Convenience, and I will always have the finest recollections from that experience,” Lee told reporters. Not everything went as planned, but I chose to focus on the positives, the benefits that not just I but everyone connected with the performance has received.
A fringe performance that nobody wanted to purchase became a phenomenon on big stages and throughout Canada, and subsequently a critical television series that was praised not just in Canada, but globally.
Lee noted that his Appa character was a “love letter” to his father, his neighbourhood, and the “traditionally voiceless.”
« Others imposed narratives on them, making them the punchline of jokes, » he claimed. “Having the agency to really drive these moments and develop that voice was a no-brainer.”
Because it wasn’t an excessively romanticised image of the average Korean immigrant guy… He wasn’t the punchline due of his accent or voice. None of that. This was an authentically…written, heartfelt guy with faults, goals, and simply trying to do his best.”
It is “gratifying” for Yoon to get this Canadian Screen Award.
“Things were incredibly horrible for performers of colour when I started,” Yoon remarked. “I believe our programme truly opened the floodgates to Asian family dynamics.”
“The business used to think Asians weren’t funny, but that’s gone now.”
U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono contacted the actor the night before former President Donald Trump’s impeachment, claiming she had been bingeing Kim’s Convenience.
“This fighter for democracy is bingeing our programme to relax,” Yoon remarked. “The answer is sometimes humbling.”
Transplant defies the medical drama formula
Transplant, a medical drama on par with Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Doctor, won outstanding drama series at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Transplant, now the most viewed Canadian drama series, follows Dr. Bashir Hamed (Hamza Haq), a Syrian immigrant who has been accepted to practise emergency care at York Memorial Hospital in Toronto.
After earning prizes for lead actor and lead actress on Sunday night, Transplant actors Hamza Haq and Laurence Leboeuf, who portrays Dr. Magalie “Mags” Leblanc, underlined the show’s unique point of view.
Formulaic, stated Haq. This specific human aspect has not been highlighted on network TV, on such a magnitude.
A brown Muslim guy attempting to find his feet in a nation and in the high stakes field of emergency care is riveting.
It’s quite distinctive, something we haven’t seen before, and I believe that helps it stand out,” Leboeuf remarked.
‘I’m proud of the show’s tone originating from Canada.’
Sort Of, from the CBC, also got praise for its narrative and won the Canadian Screen Award for best comedy series. It’s a refreshing comedy with a dash of drama, starring Sabi Mehoob (Bilal Baig), a gender-fluid 25-year-old Pakistani Canadian living in Toronto.
For co-creator Fab Filippo, it’s the show’s tone and blend of humour and drama that makes him proudest of its Canadian origins. “It is a play that speaks on an international level, and I am thrilled that it is being received so well.”
“Bringing our programme to the worldwide market in that way…sends this message that we can exist everywhere, and we can live as honestly as we do,” co-creator and actor Bilal Baig remarked.
It means so much to so many individuals who our programme has reached and may not have reached if we didn’t have worldwide releases.
