There’s a new web series coming to a laptop near you that’s bound to get viewers laughing and thinking about politics, gentrification and the environment.
The North Pole created from filmmakers Darren Colston, Josh Healy and Yvan Iturriaga follows three best friends born and raised in North Oakland, aka The North Pole, as they watch their neighborhood become gentrified. Iturriaga, series director, calls the show “a collective labor.”
“My friends, my community and my block shape everything about this project,” he said in a press release. “It’s their voices and stories on the screen. I can’t wait to share, get inspired and laugh together.”
The series stars Reyna Amaya and Donte Clark as the shows main characters, Nina and Marcus.
“We wanted to make ‘The North Pole’ because there’s no place on earth like Oakland,” filmmaker Josh Healey told IndieWire.
“Until Neil de Grasse Tyson tells me otherwise, there’s no planet in the universe like earth. I call both these places home—and both are suffering through their own kind of ‘climate change.’ At a time when whole communities and environments are being displaced and disposed of, ‘The North Pole’ is our creative picket line-turned-comedy roast.”
Post production for the series received over $25k in Kickstarter funding. And appearing in the show are Black Panther leader Ericka Huggins and W. Kamau Bell. Learn more about the series and watch the trailer here.