Sally Aitken, Aline Jacques set up production company Sam Content in Sydney

Aline Jacques (left) and Sally Aitken

Filmmakers Sally Aitken and Aline Jacques have set up an Australian prodco with a slate that includes a coproduction with New Zealand tracking the iconic story of beloved band The Wiggles.

Sydney-based Sam Content has launched with four projects in various stages of production with Australian broadcasters and screen agencies.

The as-yet-untitled Wiggles project is being coproduced with Augusto Entertainment’s Cass Avery and Daniel Story in New Zealand.

Also on the slate is Inconceivable: The Secret Business of Breeding Humans, a documentary for Oz pubcaster SBS. It focuses on investigative journalist Sarah Dingle’s discovery at the age of 27 that her mother was impregnated with sperm from an anonymous donor.

Both projects have received production funding from Screen Australia. Sam Content is also developing an architecture series and a music feature documentary, with additional projects due to be announced in the coming months, the prodco said.

Director and writer Aitken (Playing with Sharks) and producer and media executive Jacques (Lindy Chamberlain: The True Story) are joint founders of the indie.

The new outfit will develop and produce all genres of unscripted and scripted projects for domestic platforms and the international market.

Aitken’s most recent film, Playing with Sharks, has been nominated for an award at this year’s News & Documentary Emmys, which takes place on September 29.

The National Geographic doc, produced by Australia’s WildBear Entertainment and UK documentary specialist Dogwoof, follows the story of maverick conservationist Valerie Taylor and her love affair with the ocean’s most terrifying predator.

Jacques, meanwhile, has developed and produced documentaries across a wide range of genres for many of the world’s major broadcasters and distributors, including the ABC, SBS, the BBC, Nat Geo, Arte, PBS, Curiosity Stream and Discovery.

Aitken and Jacques said in a joint statement: “We’re thrilled to have a dynamic new home for our wide range of passions, interests and curiosities and look forward to continuing to grow our slate of documentary and drama projects with other like-minded creatives.

“With several projects underway and a pile more in development and imagination, our door is open to filmmakers both experienced and emerging to come and say hello to Sam, a place of trust, bold ideas and plenty of humour in realising great stories.”