Sort Of, The Queen of Basketball and Yellowjackets are among the projects nominated for a prestigious Peabody Award in the U.S.

The nomination for Toronto-shot CBC and HBO Max dramedy Sort Of, produced by Sphere Media-owned Sienna Films, comes after it got a season 2 renewal, three Canadian Screen Awards and a Rockie Award nomination — among many accolades.

The series stars co-creator and co-showrunner Bilal Baig (pictured) as a genderfluid nanny helping a family through crisis. The Peabody nomination called it “a fully inhabited portrait of a floundering 20-something” nonbinary character that “makes gender only one part of their overall search for identity as a Pakistani-Canadian nanny, bartender, sister, friend, and adult.”

The Queen of Basketball nomination follows its recent Oscar win for Best Documentary Short for Halifax-raised director Ben Proudfoot, who produced the film under his L.A. banner Breakwater Studios. The story features Lusia (Lucy) Harris Stewart, a pioneer in women’s basketball. The Peabody citation called it an “engrossing profile.”

Yellowjackets producer Entertainment One is named in the nomination for the Vancouver-shot Showtime series, which streams on Crave in Canada. It’s “a chilling examination of female friendship and lingering trauma,” said the Peabody nomination announced Wednesday (April 13).

Founded in 1940, the annual Peabody Awards honour television, podcast/radio, and digital media “that powerfully reflect the pressing social issues and the vibrant emerging voices of our day.” The nominees and winners are determined by a rigorous deliberative process and face-to-face discussions among a diverse board of jurors, from media professionals and scholars, to critics and journalists.

Canadian series that have won a Peabody in the past include Orphan Black from Boat Rocker-owned Temple Street Productions (now part of Boat Rocker Studios, TV), and Atomic Cartoons and WGBH Boston-produced animated series Molly of Denali. Orphan Black aired from 2013 to 2017 on Space in Canada and BBC America in the U.S., with a spinoff series recently greenlit by AMC Networks, while Molly of Denali was originally commissioned for PBS and CBC. Tiffany Hsiung’s documentary POV: The Apology, produced by Icarus Films and the National Film Board (NFB), won a Peabody in 2019.

This year’s 30 Peabody winners will be announced through a series of online events in June. Sort Of is also up for four awards at the Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards, which will be held virtually on April 25, and won the Members’ Choice Series Ensemble Award at last month’s 20th ACTRA Awards.

Photo Credit: Keri Anderson