Image: Michele Lee, Hmong-Australian playwright and TV writer on Secret Threads.
The $700,000 announced by Screen Australia is a roundup of development decisions which includes some projects on the list in April, which may reflect a second tranche of support. That $700,000 is a typical amount. The diversity agenda is now in full cry and is transforming the development pipeline, at least on the federal level. We note, however, that stories around disability are still absent.
Let’s look at some of these projects in terms of risk, beginning with the feature list.
Bruce Beresford is proceeding with Monash, a feature film about General Sir John Monash, the Jewish engineer who was successful on the Western Front in WW1. The producer is SA veteran Helen Leake and the writer is Louis Nowra, who has a lifetime of work in screen and theatre. Monash has been eyed off by many producers, who may have failed over the cost and the local interest of the film. Who cares in North America?
But these days CGI makes this kind of film much more realistic, and Beresford made Breaker Morant. He is a versatile director. He is also used to knockbacks and the political lottery behind greenlighting.
Producers Melissa Kelly and Ryan Hodgson have gone back into an ‘alone in the wilderness’ female crime story with a distinctive WA edge, with Ben Young directing Cage in the Wild. The team made the distinctive Hounds of Love which was an excellent study of desperate psychological combat between three well drawn characters. The remarkable partner is writer Craig Silvey, also from WA, who wrote the YA novel and teen film Jasper Jones which was a lot cuddlier.
We know this team will do a good job – betting on the quality is easy – but it may be more Netflix than cinema. This doesn’t matter any more.
Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton are a dynamite team in our humble opinion. Causeway Films came out with Babadook, Cargo, Nightingale and most recently Buoyancy. These are sophisticated films with distinctive aesthetics, made with care and intelligence. This film, Fat Lady, is a crime comedy to be written and directed by Ashlee Page, 14 years after her first short, eight years after her luscious horror vignette The Kiss gave her a profile, and five years after her part of The Turning. She is surely honed and eager.
If the comedy works, this film is pretty enticing.
This shows us the themes in the feature space. A true veteran director backed by a senior team; a regional production team that cut through with a fine first film and is moving fairly quickly to its second project; and a strong producing team which is backing a first film by an overdue director with proven skills.
In television we have Partners in Crime, an eight part series by Hanna and Eliza Reilly who proved their chops on Sheilas, an online drama series. That came through Gender Matters and this project is a straight out successor to that determination to support women. Producer Julia Corcoran has moved up from assistant producer, story producer Niki Aken worked on The Hunting by Closer Productions, itself on a solid escalator to the sky, with Yolanda Ramke from Cargo and Sarah Lambert from Love Child and creepycam Lambs of God.
Indigenous director of Satellite Boy Catriona McKenzie is part of Rough, which engages with the sex industry. Her television work is impressive – Tidelands, Harrow, Wrong Kind of Black, Kiki and Kitty, The Secret Daughter, The Warriors, Shadowhunter, Redfern Now, The Gods of Wheat Street…
Rebecca Ingram has gathered a great writing team of Michele Lee, Kris Wyld and Mike Jones to tell a story about the Melbourne Hmong-Laos community in Secret Threads. Michele Lee is a Hmong-Australian writer who has recently been part of the writing team on four part drama Hungry Ghosts, and is mostly known for her theatre work.
Dena Curtis, an Indigenous writer, director and producer has credits on 8MMM Radio, Shadow Trackers, Grace Beside Me and Elements. The Force is an action adventure comedy produced through No Coincidence Media, which works a lot with NITV.
Television is supposed to be a risk-averse medium, and the projects in this list may get a hard time particularly if budgets fall.
But it is obvious from this selection there is a strong engagement with Indigenous talent, some great NESB projects and a doorway for experienced women working with newer names. These projects were some of the more eye-catching – the large companies are in here too, and more conventional projects.
But – and this is pretty amazing – there are no less than eight projects which are fantasy, science fiction or magic realism. Only two are called drama, covering a child swap story from producers Imogen Banks and Asher Keddie, and Goolagong, a tennis biopic from Joanna Werner. And that is an Indigenous two part story directed by Wayne Blair and written by Megan Simpson Huberman and Steve McGregor.
There are several hybrids like comedy drama or thriller drama, but they all point straight into true genre. My sense of this selection is that the synopses are unusually imaginative, and that risk is ameliorated by clear genre labels and careful leavening of teams with experience.
We don’t know which broadcasters are the targets of these projects, which is a hat tip to freedom in itself. The SF and fantasy and kids’ shows could be heading for Netflix, Stan or Amazon Prime.
Online? There’s no issue about risk here. Just create good materials, demonstrate some powers of self-organisation, assemble a functioning team, find an idea with intrinsic tension, make what you want to watch and you are in with a chance.
This is a breath of fresh air with a couple of sage names. I like them so much, I will copy the whole list.
AVENGE MY DEATH
unko Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Producers Belinda Dean, Ellen Fraser
Director Claudia Pickering
Writer Nicole Conway
Synopsis Wild 20-somethings Erin, Jax and Sara are inseparable – that is, until Erin goes on a date with a guy she met online and winds up dead. With the police bungling the investigation, Jax and Sara vow to hunt down her killer using the only piece of evidence they have: a dick pic.
MISERY FM
720 Creative Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy
Producer Karla Burt
Executive Producer Paul Walton
Director Tom Salisbury
Writers Michael Cleggett, James Lloyd-Smith
Synopsis An absurd series from cult comedy heroes Gravity Boots is a hilarious scripted snapshot of life inside a radio station located in the regional South Australian town of Misery.
SUNDOWNERS
On The Deck Productions
Producer/Writer Dan Prichard
Director Laura Scrivano
Genre Action adventure, Comedy, Science fiction, Family
Synopsis A mother. A son. A virus. At the end of the day, it’s all about love.
THE HOLY FLOYD FOLEY
Noble Savage Pictures Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy
Producers Majhid Heath, Hayley Johnson
Writer Shane Salvador
Synopsis When Pastor Floyd Foley’s flock numbers are threatened by the arrival of a hot shot new church, he and his congregation of misfits will stop at nothing to lure the congregants back. Guided by the hilarious BAFTA winning Allan Mustafa and Hugo Chegwin, writer Shane Salvador will bring small town antics and comedy together in the mockumentary series, The Holy Floyd Foley.
ALL FOR EVE
Ava Studios Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy, Drama
Producer/Writer Olga Markovic
Director TBC
Synopsis Starting over isn’t easy. Especially when you’re a single mum with no money and a dead husband.
AMAZING GRACE
JAM Productions Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy, Drama
Producer/Director Julie Money
Writers Julie Money, Grace Truman
Synopsis A web series from the point of view of teenager Grace, about losing a parent, living and growing up.
CHEETAH AIRWAYS
Cliff House Productions
Genre Comedy
Producers Claudia Pickering, Emma Leonard, Catherine van der Rijt
Executive Producer Luke Eve
Director Claudia Pickering
Writers Claudia Pickering, Emma Leonard, Prudence Vindin
Synopsis Cheetah Airways is an online comedy series that takes us behind the scenes of a dodgy budget airline.
NARK MIKOLADIS THE TRADING CARD KING
Aunty Donna Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy, Action adventure
Executive Producers Max Miller, Sam Lingham, Broden Kelly, Mark Bonanno, Zachary Ruane, Thomas Armstrong
Director Max Miller
Writers Caitlyn Staples, Jayden Masciulli, Mario Hannah, Ryan Zorzut, Elyce Phillips
Synopsis After discovering that a rare Charizard Pokemon card is now worth a mini fortune, a twenty-something who’s supposed to be looking for a job, begins a quest to reclaim the card from the primary school bully who stole it from her 15 years ago.
SALMA AND THE CITY
Chemical Media Pty Ltd
Genre Comedy, Drama
Producer Tony Jackson
Director/Writer Kauthar Abdulalim
Synopsis When a 45-year-old Australian-Pakistani mother decides it’s time to chase her dream of winning the Australian Open, she has to battle family expectations, gender stereotypes and centuries of tradition before she even meets an opponent on the tennis court.
CHEN PM 3010
Béatrice Barbeau-Scurla
Genre Comedy, Science fiction
Producers Aaron Chen, Béatrice Barbeau-Scurla
Director Alexei Toliopoulous
Writers Aaron Chen, Alexei Toliopoulous
Synopsis In the year 3010, when no one wants to be Prime Minister of Australia, a lottery is drawn and Aaron Chen must rise to the occasion and deal with the responsibly of running the country.
PLUSHED
Sam Weingott
Genre Black comedy
Producer Sam Weingott
Director Simon Taylor
Writers Simon Taylor, Clare Sladden
Synopsis When a plush toy T-Rex is assigned to care for a 27-year-old OCD sufferer, he must overcome his own insecurities in order to defeat the mental illness before his human gives up on life.
OVERHEATER
Closer Productions Pty Ltd
Genre Science Fiction, Comedy
Producers Kirsty Stark, Sophie Hyde
Writer/Director Matt Vesely
Synopsis: Overheater is a sci-fi comedy set in a lazily dystopian world, in which a young couple must negotiate life and love while dealing with their new house guest – a depressed robot shopkeeper they’ve saved from the scrap heap.
