'Brown Girls' Creators Are Taking Their Great Web Series To HBO

By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 5, 2017 10:00PM

Sonia Denis as Patricia in 'Brown Girls'

One of Chicago's most deserved filmmaking success stories of recent years is about to hit the even-bigger time. Elle reports and HBO has confirmed that the creators of the excellent, Chicago-filmed and -set web series Brown Girls have signed on with the premium cable leader to develop a show based on their indie hit.

Chicago writer Britt Julious broke the news in Elle with an interview with the two Brown Girls principles, writer Fatimah Asghar and director Samantha Bailey. Mara Mikialian, VP of Media Relations for HBO, confirmed with Chicagoist that the as-yet-untitled project is in development but declined to offer further details.

But we can confirm that, since it's based on the original series—which you can stream on Chicago-based platform Open TV—and the masterminds are on board, it'll be appointment viewing. Brown Girls, which premiered in February, centered around the friendship between South Asian-American writer Leila and Black-American musician Patricia. The scale is kept deliberately intimate, but deeply observed. It took off like wildfire, first in Chicago, then beyond, not least because it played like a watershed for representation of queer women of color in television, web or otherwise.

Check out episode one of the original web series below and read Elle's interview here.

Brown Girls -- Episode 1 from Open TV (beta) on Vimeo.