Abacus Media Rights (AMR), a member of the Amcomri Media Group, has secured sales of CBC original series Trickster to Sky in the UK (SyFy); NITV and SBS On Demand in Australia, Globoplay in Brazil and KinoPoisk (Yandex) in Russia ahead of its launch on CBC in October and on the day following its world premiere at TIFF.
From Canadian producers Sienna Films, and already greenlit for a second season by CBC, Trickster (6 x 60’) is based on the best-selling trilogy by Eden Robinson, Son of a Trickster.
Trickster is created by Streel Films’ Michelle Latimer (Rise, Nuuca) and Tony Elliott (Orphan Black), who also act as Executive Producers, alongside Sienna Films’ Jennifer Kawaia and Julia Sereny (Cardinal, Ransom). All six episodes are directed by Michelle Latimer.
Jonathan Ford, Managing Director, AMR, comments, “We are delighted to have the opportunity to represent this extremely timely drama on the international market. Trickster is at first sight an irreverent coming-of-age story - teen angst, family pressures, and social complications - but dig deeper and the story explores issues of identity, cultural heritage and family legacy as seen through an Indigenous perspective.”
Based on the bestselling trilogy Son of a Trickster, written by Eden Robinson, Trickster is a supernatural mystery which delves into an indigenous mythology rarely, if ever, seen before on television.
The series stars Joel Oulette (Monkey Beach), Crystle Lightning (Outlander), Kalani Queypo (Fear the Walking Dead), Anna Lambe (The Grizzlies), Nathan Alexis (Tin Star), Georgine Lightning (Blackstone), Craig Lauzon (Royal Canadian Air Farce) and Joel Thomas Hynes (Frontier).
Jared is an Indigenous teen in the town of Kitimat, a coastal town in Northern British Columbia, struggling to keep his dysfunctional family above water. He holds down an after-school job and cooks ecstasy on the side to support his separated parents - partying mom Maggie, who self-medicates an undiagnosed mental illness, and unemployable dad Phil, who has a painkiller addiction and a new girlfriend. But when Jared starts seeing strange things — talking ravens, doppelgängers, skin monsters — his already chaotic life is turned upside down.
At first, he thinks he’s losing his mind, but to his relief, and terror, the supernatural events are all too real. It turns out there’s more than meets the eye to the place Jared grew up, the people he loves – and to Jared himself. He’s inherited magical abilities from his mum, and from someone Jared never even knew existed - his real dad, Wade.
Jared’s mum hid the truth from him because Wade is not just any dad. He’s also the mythical Trickster. And Wade’s reason for suddenly showing up in his son’s life is centuries in the making. Wade has come back to determine if Jared has inherited his magic. Because only one Trickster can exist at a time.
With his friend Crashpad and girlfriend Sarah, Jared navigates an already tricky situation that has deadly implications – Jared needs to stop his dad from killing him, but his real struggle is to control his own life. Being a teenager already sucks. The supernatural death threat makes it suck that much harder.
