Dentsu Creative Entertainment’s first major work to premiere this week
Dentsu Creative Entertainment is tugging on the heartstrings of Australia with a new documentary that follows the stories of athletes at the World Transplant Games earlier this year, launching this week via Paramount and Network 10.
‘Second Chance Champions’ is the first documentary produced by the new offering, led by creative director Liam Bagnall.
Entirely filmed, edited, produced and owned by Dentsu Creative, the film champions the stories of athletes Rezwan Mohammed, a Rohingan refugee, and Linda and Laurie Hindom, a husband and wife donor and donor recipient duo.
Athlete Rezwan Mohammed
The games, which take place every four years much like the Olympics, see 45 countries participate in 17 different sports. It is designed to encourage organ donation and raise awareness of the need for organ donation registration and for people to have conversations with their next of kin.
The documentary seeks to honour the legacy of donors and donor recipients, collaborating with the World Transplant Games to create a medal that can be split in two, allowing the winner to share their medal with their organ donor or their family.
Bagnall, who led the documentary production, told Mumbrella: “Generally, the way documentaries and shows about transplant communities turn up in the world are like those 24 Hours in A&E shows… And traditionally the way they show organ transplants is too difficult for audiences to watch.
“So when we started looking at this film, it was a way of telling these stories but without the hard-hitting stuff. It’s a compelling way for us to be able to tell a story and inspire change, to inspire people to want to sign up to the register, with the stories of some people who have lived it and gone on to achieve some incredible things.”
Dentsu Creative ECD, Sarah McGregor, added: “When we all discovered that this [the games] existed, we were like ‘how have none of us heard about this?’.
“It is the perfect way to talk about organ donation – it’s so positive and life affirming, and working on it fed our souls in the most wonderful way.”
Athlete Laurie Hindom
“It’s been fantastic, it’s honestly been something I’m most proud of making in my career, because it will genuinely go on to inform change and help people and save lives, and I can’t imagine being more fortunate than to work on something like that,” Bagnall said.
McGregor said Bagnall has been really committed to this film, adding that the key audience for the documentary is families.
“We want every family in Australia to talk about organ donation. What you tend to find happening is in 54% of cases, the family overturns the decisions of a person to donate their organs, because they haven’t discussed their wishes beforehand,” she said.
“So if you’re on the organic donor registry, and you’ve discussed it, the completion rate is about 90%, but if you haven’t, it’s only about 40%.
“This doco is really important and it’s designed to promote families having these conversations, and through something people love to talk about already, sport, rather than the doom and gloom of organ donation.”
Dentsu Creative has collaborated with Paramount to air the documentary on Channel 10, and Bagnall said they were fortunate to find such a great partner.
“We reached out about it, and they came in and said ‘we’d really love to show it, what can we do to be involved, can we please work with you’,” he said. “We got very fortunate, working with a legacy brand like Paramount really speaks to the importance of the film.”
‘Second Chance Champions’ will be available to watch on 10 and 10 Play at 1pm on 17 November, and 9am on 19 November, before being made available on Paramount+ in the new year.
Watch the trailer here:
Credits:
Transplant Australia
Chris Thomas – CEO
Jo O’Farrell – Manager, stakeholder relations
Dentsu Creative
Kirsty Muddle – CEO
Mandie van der Merwe & Avish Gordon – Chief creative officers
Sarah McGregor – Executive creative director
Liam Bagnall – Creative director, entertainment
Trent Hendrick – Creative director
Monique Horsley – Copywriter
Kean Szczur – Art director
Roz Scrimshaw – Lead producer
Craig Sloane – Producer
Sandy Madden – Producer
Mike Papa – Designer
Graham Alvarez – Strategy partner
Paul Isbell – Strategy partner, social & content
Will Giles – Strategy director, channel
Guy Lovell – Managing partner
Tiffany Simon – Senior account director, PR
Production
Director – Liam Bagnall
Writer – Clare Conway
DOP – Tim Fitzgerald
Sound recordist – Jason North
Colorist – Tim Egan
Photographer – Daniel Mazzarella
Composer – Smith & Western
Sound mix – Final Sound
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Lauren McNamara was the associate editor at Mumbrella. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left Mumbrella in August 2025.
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topics
Dentsu Creative
Dentsu Creative Entertainment
Documentary
Liam Bagnall
Sarah McGregor
Transplant Australia
World Transplant Games
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