A new comedy series called Trying Hard created by and starring Filipino newcomer Maki Bonifacio, is now available to watch on YouTube. The web series is currently on its fifth episode. New episodes of the series are set to be released every Wednesday at 8 PM in the Philippines.
The show’s pilot episode premiered on Sunday, October 11 (National Coming Out Day), and coincided with the celebration of LGBT Month and Filipino-American History Month in the U.S.
Trying Hard, which was also produced and written by Bonifacio, follows the story of a gay person from the Philippines who works and resides in Nashville, Tennessee. The 8-episode series revolves around Maki surmounting his insecurities and the challenges linked to his status as an immigrant and confronting the pressure from his family over his sexuality.
Despite its comic approach, the web series tackles the struggles of queer foreigners in the U.S., highlighting the issue of discrimination, race and gender stereotyping, identity crisis, body standards, and cultural barriers. It shows an accurate portrayal of what it is like to be queer, a person of color, and OFW in the West.
The show also features the music of established and indie artists from Nashville, Toronto, Montreal, New York, and Manila.
Bonifacio, who was born and raised in the Philippines, worked first as a news producer for GMA Network Inc. from 2011 to 2014 before settling to the U.S. to study M.S. Television Management at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He moved to Nashville in 2016 to work in a cable channel company.
You can watch the comedy series on the YouTube channel tryinghardtv. For more information and updates, follow @TryingHardTV on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
You can watch and support some local films on MOOV, Cinema Centenario’s video on-demand online channel.
