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First indigenous sci-fi film penned and produced by M&C Saatchi staffer

A new Australian film project, written and produced by Josh Bryer, creative group head at M&C Saatchi, is to be the world’s first Indigenous sci-fi film.

Using crowd funding platform Indiegogo, Bryer with director Oscar Nicholson is running a campaign to raise $20,000 for the short film Kindred. The film’s current investment balance sits at $4,638.

The story is based on a Dreamtime story by the Worora tribe of Western Australia who tell the story of the Wandjina, a tribe that ‘came down from the sky in boats and created the world.’

Bryer told Encore: “The film, set in present day, is about Warrun, an Aboriginal man who wakes up inside an Alien spacecraft and has the opportunity to break free from the aliens. There’s a zero gravity scene. There’s a spaceship crashing into the outback, and at that point there is a twist that offers a big reveal.”

Production is due to begin in early September at Nicholson’s On Productions’ Surry Hills studios, with post production by Heckler, the post house who delivered VFX for Cadbury’s Joyville campaign and Lexus’ ‘bold new feeling’.

Bryer hopes the film will premiere in March doing the festival circuit.

Nicholson said in his Indiegogo campaign: “Its also exciting to be making a film starring Indigenous people who are grossly under-represented in film.”

Bryer told Encore he hopes the short film will be the stepping stone to a feature film covering similar story, in the way Niel Blomkamp’s Live in Joburg led to District 9.

While the film is being made outside of M&C Saatchi, Bryer said he is calling on some creative talent, connections and crowd-funded finance from his colleagues.

The production has used editor Charles Ivory, who has cut commercials for BigPond and Heineken, with SFX by Dan Higson, founder of Smith & Western and costume designer Claude Marcos.

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