Screen Australia supports Snowtown, My Place
Screen Australia announced funding approvals worth $5m, for 11 projects including Warp Films’ already controversial true-crime feature Snowtown.
CEO Ruth Harley justified the decision – which has been questioned by mainstream media, particularly in Victoria and South Australia – on Australia’s history of “socially relevant” cinema based on true-life crimes, in the vein of The Boys and Chopper.ABC3’s flagship drama My Place also received support for series 2, which will take the children’s history project from 1878 to the time before white settlement.
The combined production of the 11 projects is worth $18m. They are:
Snowtown
- feature
- Warp Films Australia
- Producers: Anna McLeish, Sarah Shaw
- Writer: Shaun Grant
- Director: Justin Kurzel
- Sales and distribution: Protagonist (rest of theworld), Madman (Australia)
- Synopsis: When 15-year-old Jamie Vlassakis meets a man who pledges to protect him, a friendship begins. As the relationship grows so do Jamie’s suspicions, until he finds his world threatened by both his loyalty for, and fear of, his newfound father figure, John Bunting, Australia’s most notorious serial killer.
X
- feature
- Circe Films
- Executive producer: Peter Castaldi
- Producer: Lizzette Atkins
- Co-producer/director/writer: Jon Hewitt
- Writer: Belinda McClory
- Synopsis: A jaded callgirl and a fledgling streetwalker are thrown together on the night from hell.
My Place -Series 2
- Children’s TV
- Matchbox Pictures
- Producer: Penny Chapman
- Co-producer: Helen Panckhurst
- Writers: Alice Addison, Blake Ayshford, Leah Purcell, John Alsop, Wayne Blair, Nicholas Parsons, Gina Roncoli, Greg Waters, Dallas Winmar
- Directors: Jessica Hobbs, Catriona McKenzie, Sam Lang, Michael James Rowland, Shawn Seet
- Sales and distribution: ABC, ABC Commercial and ACTF
- Synopsis: Continues the story of 26 children who live in the one spot in Australia over 260 years. Part 2 tells their tales from 1878 to Beforetime (before white settlement). Based on the award-winning book for children by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins.
Driving to D-Day
- documentary
- Intomedia Pty Ltd
- Producer/writer/director: Stuart Scowcroft
- Broadcaster: The History Channel
- Sales and distribution: Intomedia
- Synopsis Across a continent to the invasion beaches of Normandy, 30 eccentric Australians drive through history in antique military vehicles to commemorate the landings that liberated Europe.
Paul Cox
- documentary
- Co-production between Frontline Films and Rebel Films
- Producer: Jeni McMahon
- Co-producer/writer/director/DOP: David Bradbury
- Broadcaster: ABC
- Synopsis: After a life-saving liver transplant unorthodox filmmaker Paul Cox contemplates his own mortality and his life’s work.
Recipe for murder
- documentary
- Stray Dog Pictures for Jumping Dog Productions
- Producer: Susan Lambert
- Co-producer: Frank Haines
- Writer/director: Sonia Bible
- Broadcaster: ABC TV
- Sales and distribution: ABC Commercial
- Synopsis: Sydney, 1953… Women went on a killing spree. Their weapon… one lethal ingredient in a Recipe for Murder.
Scarlet Road
- documentary
- Paradigm Pictures
- Producer: Pat Fiske
- Director/co-producer: Catherine Scott
- Broadcaster: SBS
- Synopsis: Scarlet Road follows the extraordinary work of Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton. Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression, she specialises in a new and emerging clientele – people with disability.
The Family
- documentary – series
- Shine Australia Pty Ltd
- Executive producers: Mark Fennessy and Carl Fennessy
- Broadcaster: SBS
- Sales and distribution: SBS Content Sales, Shine International
- Synopsis: An eight-part documentary series that lifts the lid on family dynamics to build an intimate portrait of family life in Australia today, The Family follows the highs and lows of every aspect of one Australian family.
Kangaroo Mob
- documentary – international
- 360 Degree Films
- Writer/Producer Sally Ingleton
- Director Simon Target
- Sales & Distribution NGTI
- Broadcaster ABC, RTBF Belgium, YLE and SVT
- Synopsis An intimate look at the kangaroos taking over the suburbs of Canberra and the team of ecologists following their every move.
Dr. Mary Goes Bush
- documentary – international series
- Artemis International Pty Ltd
- Executive Producers Brian Beaton, Celia Tait
- Producer Brian Beaton
- Director Stuart Grieg
- Sales & Distribution SBS Content Sales
- Broadcaster SBS, BBC Scotland
- Synopsis: Outspoken and zealous, Dr Mary Fortune leaves Scotland to take up the challenge of working in one of the most remote medical posts on the planet. With her fresh eyes we discover the realities of Australian health delivery in a new light.
Life in Movement: Tanja Liedtke’s Story
- documentary – special fund
- Closer Productions (production company)
- Producers Sophie Hyde and Bryan Mason
- Directors Bryan Mason and Sophie Hyde
- Sales & Distribution TBC
- Broadcaster TBC
- Synopsis: At 29, Tanja Liedtke was appointed as the director of Sydney Dance Company; she never started the job. Her sudden death brings life into sharp focus.
Here we go again…
Serial killers, suburban melodrama, just plain suburban, not just sex workers but extraordinary ones, naval gazing, kangaroos and death… Another thrilling creative mix! Can’t wait not to watch any of them…
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My Place S2? It wasn’t a success on ABC. What overseas success justifies a second series?
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Agree with Eivis…judging by the above lot it is patently obvious that drama in Oz has completely lost its way. The Eighties might have been the golden years but they bear revisiting – some of the best drama ever produced in the country. Productions like Harp in the South, Poor Man’s Orange, The Dismissal, Come in Spinner, Cowra Breakout, Vietnam, Robbery Under Arms, Bangkok Hilton, Fields of Fire. And let’s not forget movies – Gallipoli, Newsfront, Phar Lap, Wake in Fright…..I could go on. Australia has proven its world class story telling ability….it’s time to find its way again.
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This sucks. 18m and quite shitty shows. I prefer some action. Kung Fu action. They should have a series two of Downtown Rumble. That was the coolest show I’ve seen on ABC in a long time.
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Wow, a Paul Cox documentary! I have been waiting so long to see what kind of man spews the kind of wank that he does and -wait for it…gets funding for it! The only redemptive thing that could come out of this is that after Paul finishes contemplating his life and work he shoots himself on camera. That I’d see. Or at least, I’d illegally download it and skip to the end so that I can watch him shoot himself in the head without having to watch anything else about him.
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Fair mix of comments but how about we wait and see the end product…although judging by the last decade and a half, I won’t be holding my breath. I wonder how many of these correspondents are like me and are nursing more than a bunch of sour grapes? We all have the product the world has been waiting for but getting the money/! Now there’s a story waiting to be told!
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Jeff – goodness sake wake up to yourself! (show some PC).
Develope a screenplay about a blind – homeless – disabled Aboriginal single parent struggling against autism & substance adiction who has coverted to Islam -subsequent battle with authorities who refuse visa’s for the Sri Lanken family she (he) wishes too sponsor?
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