Screen Australia spends $2.4m on seven docos including more Go Back To Where You Came From
Screen Australia has invested $2.4m across seven documentaries to create what it says will be $6.5m worth of production.
Cordell Jigsaw will return with a second series of SBS’s successful Go Back to Where You Came From to test six Australians about their preconcieved notions of asylum seekers by visiting refugees from regions not previously covered.
Producer Tristram Miall and writer/director Robin Hughes will create a six-part series called Creative Minds, exploring the lives of six Australia artists who have significantly contributed to the nation’s cultural landscape.
Using the ‘new science of happiness’ principles, experts will see if science can help couples save their relationships in Making Couples Happy, a four-part ABC series.
Photographer Murray Fredericks captures the Greenland Icecap in Nothing on Earth, produced, directed and written by the team behind award winning documentary, Salt.
Coming out of the National Documentary Program, Raising the Curtain traces the emergence and evolution of the Australian voice in theatre, while Gallipoli From Above takes a provocative new approach to the story of Australian nationhood through the catalyst of WWI.
Continuing the Life series, looking at Australian family life in the 2000s, Life at 7 examines early child development, peers and temperament.
Screen Australia’s Chief Executive Ruth Harley said, “We’re constantly impressed by the level of expertise in the documentary community. Screen Australia investment ensures high-quality documentaries can continue to be supported and developed in this country.”
NATIONAL DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM
GALLIPOLI FROM ABOVE
John Moore Productions
55 mins
Producer John Moore
Writer/Director Wain Fimeri
Broadcaster Foxtel
Sales ABC Commercial, Beyond Distribution
Synopsis Gallipoli From Above will reveal a truth about the ANZAC landing far more significant than the myths about poor planning, wrong beaches and British generals sending the ANZACs to certain death.
LIFE AT 7
Heiress Films Pty Ltd
2 x 55 mins
Producer Jennifer Cummins
Executive Producer Daryl Karp
Writer/Director Jen Peedom
Broadcaster ABC TV
Sales ABC Commercial
Synopsis Life at 7 continues the stories of 11 Australian children against the backdrop of the largest-ever longitudinal study on child development in this country, looking this time at peers and temperament.
RAISING THE CURTAIN
Essential Media and Entertainment Pty Ltd
3 x 52 mins
Series Producer Aline Jacques
Executive Producer Julia Peters
Writer Alec Morgan
Broadcaster STVIDO TV
Sales Essential Media
Synopsis Raising the Curtain is a three-part documentary series that celebrates Australia’s vibrant and fascinating theatre history. From the earliest entrepreneurs, writers and performers to today’s theatrical visionaries and luminaries, this series will capture the energy and passion of live theatre that Australia has enjoyed for well over two centuries.
GENERAL DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM
CREATIVE MINDS
Arts Bio Pty Ltd
6 x 40 mins
Producer Tristram Miall
Writer/Director Robin Hughes
Broadcaster STVDIO TV
Synopsis Creative Minds is a six-part series of documentary interviews designed to bring an audience into intimate contact with the people who create Australian art or who contribute in a significant way to Australian cultural life. Each program will explore in depth, using the artist’s own words, memories, and insights, that person’s life story and the influences that inform his or her work.
GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM 2
Cordell Jigsaw Productions
3 x 60 mins
Executive Producers Michael Cordell, Nick Murray
Series Producer Rick McPhee
Broadcaster SBS Sales, SBS Distribution
Synopsis Six Australians agree to challenge their preconceived notions about refugees and asylum seekers by taking a confronting refugee journey themselves for 25 days.
MAKING COUPLES HAPPY
Heiress Films Pty Ltd
4 x 55 mins
Producer Jennifer Cummins
Executive Producer Daryl Karp
Director Kalita Corrigan
Series Producer/Writer Will Parry
Broadcaster ABC TV
Sales All3Media, ABC Commerical
Synopsis Making Australia Happy put the new science of happiness to the test on eight miserable Sydneysiders and proved that by using positive psychology, mindfulness and focusing on their physical well-being, anyone could significantly increase their happiness levels in only eight weeks. Now, we’re upping the stakes. In the four-part Making Couples Happy, the experts will again put themselves on the line to see if science can help couples on the brink save their relationships.
NOTHING ON EARTH
Jerrycan Films Pty Ltd
57 mins
Producers Michael Angus, Roxana McMallan
Directors Michael Angus, Murray Fredericks
Writer Michael Angus
Broadcaster ABC TV
Sales Naked Flame Productions
Synopsis Murray Fredericks is an award-winning artist renowned for his photographs of the vast empty space of Lake Eyre, South Australia. When he relocates his work to the Greenland Icecap – atop a melting glacier and under the solar storms of the Aurora Borealis – he finds himself alone in a landscape he’s never been, in a place he doesn’t understand, hoping this time he hasn’t taken his quest too far. What begins as an artistic odyssey becomes an adventure of extremes in one of the most breathtaking environments on Earth.
