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19 10 2016 - Media release

Screen Australia announces more than $3 million in development and production funding

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The Buried

The latest Screen Australia funding covers a diverse slate of projects including a true post-War story from the Oscar-winning team behind The King’s Speech, a Dreamtime virtual reality experience, to an online series about bipolar disorder that is being co-executive produced by British comedian Stephen Fry.

Two Indigenous television projects and eight multiplatform projects have received production funding, eight feature film projects have received development funding, and two individuals and two companies have received talent and sector development funding, totalling over $3 million in funding from Screen Australia.

The two Indigenous television projects to have received production investment funding are:

  • ABC TV’s The Warriors announced last week, a new Indigenous comedy drama series from Arenamedia set in the competitive world of Australian Rules Football, with major production investment from Screen Australia and funding support from Film Victoria;
  • NITV documentary Carry The Flag (working title) which delves into the story behind the Torres Strait Island flag designed by Bernard Namok, from Tamarind Tree Pictures with Screen Queensland and Screen Territory support.

Click here to see more about these Indigenous production projects.

Among the eight Multiplatform projects to have received production investment funding are:

  • Virtual reality project The Buried, a 3D immersive experience that plunges the viewer into a magical Dreamtime world, from Indigenous writer/director Tyson Mowarin, creative director Stuart Campbell and producer Justin McArdle, with funding support from Screenwest;
  • Conspiracy thriller Event Zero, a hybrid-format SVOD feature film and TV series based on the 2012 web series of the same name, from producer/director Enzo Tedeschi (Airlock, The Tunnel);
  • Australian Irish co-production teen comedy series Drop Dead Weird for Seven Network and RTE Ireland, which follows an Australian family who move to rural Ireland to run the family B&B, from producers Monica O’Brien and Sally Browning with funding support from Screen NSW;
  • British comedian Stephen Fry and Gina Carter are executive producing web series High Life, a companion piece to the highly acclaimed series Low Life from creators Adam Dolman and Luke Eve, about 17-year-old Genevieve who experiences her first manic episode of bipolar disorder;
  • And the punk rockers from Newcastle return for another season of antics in YouTube mockumentary These New South Whales from writer/director/producing team Jamie and Ben Timony and Todd Andrews, with Laura Waters (8MMM) joining Jeffrey Walker (Dance Academy) as Executive Producer.

Click here to see further information about this round of funded Multiplatform production projects.

The latest round of Story Development funding, July to September 2016, saw eight feature film projects share in over $250,000 worth of funding. Among those funded are:

  • The Unknown Soldier based on the inspiring true story of the British priest who created the first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, to help a nation grieving after The Great War, from acclaimed screenwriter Jan Sardi (The Secret River, Shine) and the Oscar-winning team from See Saw Productions, Emile Sherman, Rachel Gardner and Iain Canning;
  • High octane thriller Celestial Blue, where air hostess Avery is faced with a deadly pandemic that breaks out on board mid-flight, from These Final Hours writer/director Zak Hilditch and producer Liz Kearney (Paper Planes, Spear);
  • The Blue Tin, a powerful dramatisation of a death-in-custody tragedy and a family’s struggle for justice, from producer David Jowsey (Goldstone, Mystery Road) and writer Stephen Sewell;
  • Sci-fi dystopian drama In Vitro from writer/director/producing team Will Jaymes, Tom McKeith and Talia Zucker is the second outing for Jaymes and McKeith who’s debut feature Beast with Sam McKeith was selected for TIFF in 2015;
  • And Jirga from writer Benjamin Gilmour and producer John Maynard (Sherpa), about a former Australian soldier who returns to Afghanistan to find the family of a man he killed in combat.

Click here for the full list of feature film development funding recipients, and click here for the full list of talent and sector development funding recipients.

Media enquiries

Maddie Walsh | Publicist

+ 61 2 8113 5915  | [email protected]

Lidia Williams | Senior Publicist

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