Since the release in 2016, Season One of “Pot Luck” has racked up over 1.5 million unique views across all six episodes on multiple online platforms!
With fans from all over the world clamouring for a second season, the production company have just secured a cool $100,000 NZD from New Zealand On Air’s Digital Fund!
This has been bolstered by contributions from Wellington City Council’s Arts and Culture Fund and kew sponsor Hell Pizza.
Set in Wellington, New Zealand, Pot Luck season one introduced the world to the lives of Mel (Nikki Si’ulepa), Debs (Anji Kreft) and Beth (Tess Jamieson-Karaha), three lesbain characters in their thirties and fourties.
The universal themes of friendship, family and finding love have been positively recieved by a broad audience both in New Zealand and overseas, with the majority of viewers based in the United States.
Ness Simons, the writer and director, is looking forward to sharing the next stage of Mel, Debs and Beth’s friendship and romantic lives in season two, which picks up a few months after season one left off.
“The past few years and seen some great steps in terms of queer characters on screen but portrayals are still limited, and while there’s increasing mainstream acceptance of lesbians in shows such as Wentworth and Orange is the New Black, these characters are in jail and don’t really represent the everyday lesbian experience.”
Ness is commitetd to creating high quality content that will appeal to a mainstream audience, while representing an authentic portrayal of queer life… with a few laughs along the way!
The highly successful first season was officially selected at several international and local web-series festivals, including UKWebFest, DubWebFest (Dublin), NZWebFest, LA based OutWebFest, Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Web Series Festival Global. It was a finalist in the LGBT categorys at DubWebFest and the NZWebFest. The series recently swept the pool in the Rome Web Awards, winning a massive 10 Merit awards in the LGBT category, which has led to a further 9 nominations in their Excellence Awards, to be announced in June 2017.
Season one was funded through a Boosted crowd-funding campaign, arts funding, sponsorship and private investment. The NZ on Air Funding will enable the Pot Luck team to stretch their parameters, but they will still be relying on the generosity of the many sponsors, supporters and cast & crew who share their passion for telling stories that aren’t usually found in mainstream media.