Open Television
will premiere four
of 40+ pieces of
original content
at the Museum of
Contemporary Art
at Cycle 4 on April 4
Diverse TV platform Open Television (OTV) will premiere Cycle 4 of its upcoming season at the Museum of Contemporary Art on April 4th.
The event will launch four original series infused with a late night talk show Q&A format with content creators and alternating between live DJ music sets (see film lineup and trailers below).
In addition to the world premiere of Damaged Goods, FOBia, The Right Swipe, and Good Enough, the program will also feature OTV’s arguably most well-known creators, Sam Bailey and Fatimah Asghar, of the Emmy-nominated Brown Girls web series.
Bailey and Asghar will interview Vincent Martell on his show Damaged Goods, for which they both served as executive producers.
Each one of the projects screening at the Cycle 4 runs for an average of twelve minutes. Together, they represent just four of more than 40 pieces of original content by over 50 artists and a host of cast and crewmembers on the OTV platform
Under the leadership of Founder Aymar Jean Christian and through the voices of underrepresented artistic perspectives and experiences, OTV has become one of the most critical and well-known digital content creator pipelines by and for queer, trans, women, and artists of color.
“This season we will release over 25 pilot and series projects,” says OTV founder, Aymar Jean Christian. “We are happy to build a platform and pipeline where diverse voices feel empowered to tell their truths romantically, comedically, and realistically.”
OTV’s years of success have helped the platform solidify relationships with Hollywood studios, channels and reps.
The Cycle 4 event begins at 6pm on April 4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 East Chicago Ave. For more info, click here.
CYCLE 4
OPEN TELEVISION
DAMAGED GOODS
Damaged Goods written by Vincent Martell, KB Woodson and Zak Payne is about how four messy young adults, barely surviving the city of Chicago, experience a complete loss of identity, propelling them onto a path of uncertainty.
FOBia
FOBia, written and created by Priya Mohanty, is about an Indian immigrant woman adapting to life in America with her American roommate and Indian neighbor while dealing with cultural misunderstandings and general mayhem.
THE RIGHT SWIPE
The Right Swipe is written by Juli Del Prete and Kyra Jones. The series comes to life as best friends India and Margo start a business fixing dating app profiles for men, they discover how much their own love lives are infiltrated. The Right Swipe is a romantic comedy web series exploring the challenges of dating at various intersections of marginalized identities.
GOOD ENOUGH
Good Enough is written by Elijah McKinnon, Dewayne Perkins and Aasia Bullock. As a group of Chicago-based friends face their flaws, and attempt to hold it all together, they learn to love themselves as a string of messy decisions unravel during Sunday supper.
About Open Television | OTV
Open Television (OTV) is a platform for intersectional television. OTV’s mission marries research with artist and community development, focusing on showcasing artists who identify with multiple identities marginalized by the market and society. Because the Internet has opened up television and art markets beyond New York and Los Angeles, OTV develops Chicago artists by helping them make and release original video and TV about diverse experiences online. OTV is currently incorporating as an incubator, creating an unprecedented pipeline to bigger entities by managing, producing, and exhibiting original work.
About Aymar Jean “AJ” Christian
Aymar Jean “AJ” Christian is an assistant professor of communication studies at Northwestern University and a Fellow at the Peabody Media Center. His first book, Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television on New York University Press, argues the web brought innovation to television by opening development to independent producers. His work has been published in numerous academic journals, including The International Journal of Communication, Cinema Journal, Continuum, and Transformative Works and Cultures. He has juried television and video for the Peabody Awards, Gotham Awards, and Tribeca Film Festival, among others. OTV programs have received recognition from HBO, the Television Academy (Emmy Awards), New York Television Festival, City of Chicago, Streamy Awards, and Independent Filmmaker Project (Gotham Awards). Its programming partners have included the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
About screenings at the MCA
The Museum of Contemporary Art hosts screenings that feature experimental works of contemporary cinema that expand traditional notions of movie-going and are organized by Christy LeMaster, Assistant Curator of Public Programs.
Send your indie film updates to Reel Chicago Editor Dan Patton, dan@reelchicago.com.
