REGINA – Zarqa Nawaz (above) and CBC announced today production has begun in Regina, Saskatchewan on Zarqa (6×11), a new original comedy series premiering on CBC Gem in 2022.
Nawaz, the award-winning Canadian film and television producer, author, and journalist who created the CBC sit-com Little Mosque on the Prairie, is the series the creator, showrunner and lead actor.
“Zarqa follows its titular character, a complex, middle-aged Muslim woman (played by Nawaz) who learns on social media that her ex-husband is marrying a white yoga instructor half his age named Bethany. Zarqa impulsively comments that she will attend the wedding with her own cliché: a white brain surgeon named Brian. Now she just has to find him,” a press release says.
“The comical chaos continues with the arrival of Zarqa’s former love interest, Yusuf, played by Rizwan Manji.”
A trailer can be viewed here. The series is filming from Oct. 12-29.
Zarqa was commissioned by CBC and is being “financed by the Bell Fund, the Independent Production Fund (IPF) and Creative Saskatchewan,” the press release says. “Canada Media Fund and IPF are funding the show and trailer development phase.”
The series is “a project of Nawaz’s Regina-based production company FUNdamentalist Films” and features an all-women team of award-winning writers, producers and directors.
Writers include Nawaz, Sadiya Durrani (Little Mosque on the Prairie, Overlord and the Underwoods) and Claire Ross Dunn (Little Mosque on the Prairie, Degrassi).
Producers include Nawaz, Dunn (DHX’s Make it Pop), Dawn Bird (Mercy) and Liz Whitmere (The Neddeaus of Dunqesne Island).
Directors include Whitmere (Up to Here), Candy Fox (ahkâmêyimo nitânis) and Iman Zawahry (Tough Crowd).
Image is a screen capture from the trailer.
