France Télévisions picks up Australian kids’ series Hardball S2 and DisRupted

Hardball S2 will air on France Télévisions next year

Pubcaster France Télévisions has picked up Australian kids’ show DisRupted and the second season of fellow Oz children’s series Hardball.

Produced by Northern Pictures in association with Screen Australia, Create NSW and the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF), Hardball follows a boy who moves to Western Sydney and joins a handball team at his new school in an attempt to topple the current king of the court.

Season two (10×24’) will launch on France Télévisions in 2022, following S1’s debut on the broadcaster’s platform Okoo.

DisRupted (3×23’), meanwhile, is a live-action series of films produced by CJZ, Sticky Pictures and LateNite Films. It explores the universal themes of newly discovered independence, finding one’s own voice, the power of friendship and children’s relationship to the world around them.

The films were created through ABC and Screen Australia’s DisRupted initiative and were all led by young Australian creatives with disabilities. They will launch on Okoo on November 18 and on children’s channel France 4 two days later, in time for National School Harassment Day.

Both Hardball and DisRupted are distributed worldwide by the ACTF, excluding France and French-speaking European territories, where the rights are held by APC Kids.