A ctor-producer Praneet Akilla’s Vancouver-based banner Akilla Express has teamed with Toronto-based 100 Dragons’ producer Teresa M. Ho on a TV adaptation of Canadian author Chelene Knight’s novel Junie.

Screenwriter Priscilla White (The Porter, Diggstown) will adapt the novel as an inter-provincial coproduction series produced by Akilla (Skymed, Motherland: Fort Salem) and Ho (Frankie Drake Mysteries, Hello (Again)), according to a news release, which noted Akilla is the lead producer.

Junie is in pre-development with the support of the IP BC Pilot Program, a partnership between Creative BC and the Canadian Media Producers Association, BC Producers Branch (CMPA-BC). The plan is to develop it into a 10 x 60-minute series for a broadcaster and/or streamer, a spokesperson tells Playback Daily.

Vancouver-based Knight’s novel was published by Book*hug Press in September 2022 and longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. It’s also a finalist for the 2023 Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction and will be released in audiobook form on May 15.

The 1930s-set story features a young woman in Hogan’s Alley, a Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver’s East End, and her jazz-singer mother who grapples with alcohol addiction.

Ho and 100 Dragons development executive Christine Tyson discovered Junie at Ontario Creates’ 2022 Page to Screen, where they met co-publisher Jay MillAr from Book*hug Press, said the release. To honour the authenticity of the adaptation being set in Vancouver, Ho and Tyson sought out the collaboration of Vancouver-based Akilla, who teamed with Ho to negotiate the book option with Samantha J. Haywood at Transatlantic Agency.

Akilla immediately said “yes” when Ho presented the project to him, he said in a statement.

“I was transported back to Hogan’s Alley by Chelene Knight’s breathtaking novel and was excited to share the stories about Black joy, love and friendship in a series format,” said Akilla. “Junie showcases the pulsing day-to-day life of a once thriving Vancouver neighbourhood crucial to Black-Canadian history.”

Ho said in reading Junie, she envisioned a continuation of the work she had started during her time producing CBC’s Frankie Drake Mysteries (Shaftesbury), “telling of the story of Canadians who have been overlooked in history.”

“Through the adaptation of this book, we celebrate the stories of women who have been forgotten in historical fiction,” added Ho. “Telling stories of complexity, beauty and heart of Black and racialized women that have been missing on our screens, we hope to secure a Canadian broadcasting partner who matches our vision of an inclusive Canadian screen.”

Knight, who is a consulting producer on the series, said the adaptation “will help to highlight an important part of Vancouver’s history” and it is her “hope that this series showcases the complexity of home, belonging, and being Black in Vancouver.”

This is the first episodic TV series for Akilla Express, which has produced such short films and digital series as the Black Screen Office- and Telus Storyhive-funded comedy short called Not For Us and the short film Mom vs. Machine. Akilla Express is also currently in development on a new short-form digital series called Raksha through the Independent Production Fund.

Akilla Express “develops and produces shorts, feature film, and digital series with a primary focus on telling unique, genre-bending stories from a third culture global majority perspective,” said the release.

“The company aims to uplift and empower emerging writers and directors who have a particular affinity for steering” protagonists who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour “away from stereotype and showcase them in stories filled with joy and ambition,” it added.

Knight is represented by Haywood, who is president of the Transatlantic Agency.

Photo of Teresa M. Ho by Michael Tjioe; photo of Chelene Knight by Jon McRae