Screen Australia Invests $13.71 Million in TV & Film Projects

SYDNEY: Screen Australia has invested AU$15.5 million ($13.71 million) in three features, five drama series, a TV movie and three kids’ shows.

The TV drama investments include ANZAC Girls, a six-part period drama series produced for the ABC, based on the story of young Australian and New Zealander women who served as nurses in World War I. Catching Milat is a two-part TV movie based on the true story of the investigation that led to the arrest of serial killer Ivan Milat. The SBS cult comedy series Danger 5 will receive investment for a second season. The Gallipoli Story is a new four-part mini-series produced for Foxtel about three journalists sent with the troops to Gallipoli in 1915, and how their quest for the truth helped change the war’s course. Love Child, an eight-part series for Network Nine, is a character drama set in 1969 in Kings Cross. Party Tricks is a new six-part series for Network Ten about a woman’s campaign to be the next State Premier and the complications that arise when her ex-lover is announced as the new leader of the opposition.

Feature projects include Paper Planes, a children’s drama about a young boy from a small outback town who dreams of competing in the World Paper Plane Championships in Japan. Ruin is a low-budget drama set in Cambodia. The arthouse drama Partisan is also supported with investment.

Children’s drama investments include season two of the 26-part live-action adventure In Your Dreams, produced for the Seven Network. Little Lunch, a mockumentary children’s comedy series about what happens at snack time in the primary school playground, was supported with investment as well. Also approved for investment was producer Jonathan M Shiff’s second season of Mako Island of Secrets. The 26-part live-action series is produced for Network Ten and ZDF Germany. 

Ruth Harley, Screen Australia’s chief executive, said, “It’s great to support a feature film for child audiences from such an experienced director as Robert Connolly, alongside two exciting new distinctive films from rising Australian talents.”

Harley added, “Quality Australian television drama continues to rate extremely well, television production companies are blossoming and forging productive relationships with broadcasters hungry for product and this funding round in particular was highly competitive.”