TORONTO – CBC and Viacom-owned streamer BET+ announced this week they are partnering on an original series with the working title of The Porter (8×60) from Inferno Pictures and Sienna Films.
Set in the 1920s The Porter “follows the journeys of four ambitious souls who hustle, dream, cross borders and confront barriers in the fight for liberation – on and off the railways that crossed North America,” says the press release.
Created by Arnold Pinnock and Bruce Ramsay, with Annmarie Morais, Marsha Greene, and Aubrey Nealon, Morais and Greene (left and right, above) are writers/showrunners on the eight-part series, with Charles Officer and R.T. Thorne set to executive produce and direct. Pinnock and Ramsay are co-executive producers.
The first season is set primarily in Montreal, Chicago and Detroit as the world rebuilds after the World War I and, inspired by real events, depicts another battle as it ripples through the Black community in Little Burgundy, Montreal – known, at the time, as the “Harlem of the North.”
“For the American and Canadian men working as railway porters, it’s a fight for equity and dignity. For the women in their lives, facing sexism and colorism, it’s a movement to claim their independence and identity. They’re young, gifted and Black, in an era that boasts anything is possible, and if change isn’t coming for them, they will come for it. By any means necessary,” reads the release.
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