Indie Spotlight: Kiwi-Chinese Flatmates Offer Up ‘Friday Night Bites’

We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now. Read previous installments here.

In 2013, a group of New Zealanders got together to make a series called Flat3, about a trio of Kiwi-Chinese women who live together. After receiving plenty of praise for their work as well as a number of accolades at web festivals, the girls of Flat3 have returned to show viewers what they get up to during the weekend. JJ Fong, Perlina Lau, and Ally Xue are the stars of Friday Night Bites, a series written and directed by Roseanne Liang and produced by Kerry Warkia.

Each episode of Friday Night Bites features a different Friday night activity undertaken by the Flat3 gang and their friends. The comedy here is distinctly Kiwi, and viewers who have enjoyed shows like Flight of the Concords will smile at the dry wit on display. At the same time, Friday Night Bites goes far beyond its national borders. In comments posted on videos within the series, the Flat3 team has cited influences ranging from Psycho

to Louie. The most prominent homage to a piece of classic film comes in an episode modeled after the 1967 movie Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.

As you can see in that episode, Friday Night Bites is not afraid to raise tough questions about cultural identity. It’s a funny show, but it’s also interested in sharing and discussing the experiences of Asian New Zealanders. If that makes you curious about Friday Night Bites, you can check out the six episodes already available on YouTube and await the 20 others that will follow in the future.

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• The Rick and Stanley Show. Two men deliver short, witty conversations in an old, beat-up car.
• You Made It Worse. In this comedy, baking serves as a coping mechanism of sorts.
• Queer Ghost Hunters. The title is pretty much self-explanatory in this series, which is currently seeking funding.

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