Paul Feig’s Powderkeg Greenlights Muslim-American Series ‘East of La Brea’

Paul Feig’s digital media production company, Powderkeg, has greenlighted the digital shortform show East of La Brea. 

The project, which is the company’s first original series, follows Aisha Hassan, a Black Muslim, and her Bangladeshi-American roommate, Farha Munshi, both twentysomethings struggling to navigate the changing landscape of their native Los Angeles home and their own ethnic communities.

Sameer Gardezi, who has writing credits on Modern Family and Outsourced, created the show using a grant from the philanthropic fund Pop Culture Collaborative and working with MuslimARC to develop a project that is authentic to the Muslim-American experience. 

Gardezi will executive produce along with Powderkeg’s Feig and Laura Fischer, who are privately funding the series through a partnership with Lyft Entertainment and Muslim American funding intiative Pillars Fund. 

“The inception of this show is a story unto itself, but the stories told through this series are beautifully authentic, and we’re so excited to partner on telling such a magnetic and diverse story,” Feig and Fischer said in a statement. 

Added Gardezi: “I’m beyond excited to be a part of this process and hope we can continue to build a pipeline for underrepresented voices both in front and behind the camera. I’m interested in growing diversity, not injecting it.”

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