Screen Australia backs SeaChange reboot

Sigrid Thornton and Aaron Pedersen

Federal funding agency Screen Australia is investing in a contemporary version of a classic Australian drama and the second season of an outback crime series.

Commissioned by the Nine Network, SeaChange – Paradise Reclaimed (working title) will see Sigrid Thornton reprise her role as Laura Gibson, who returns to the beachside paradise of Pearl Bay to attend the birth of her estranged daughter’s baby.

Created by Andrew Knight and Deborah Cox, the original ran on pubcaster the ABC, ending in 2000 after 39 episodes.

Cox and Fiona Eagger’s Every Cloud Productions and ITV Studios Australia will coproduce the new season of eight episodes, with Wayne Blair as the set-up director.

ITV owns the format, which was produced by Artist Services for the ABC and will sell the show internationally.

The new season of Mystery Road, commissioned by the ABC and produced by Bunya Productions, will follow Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) as he solves a grisly murder in a coastal town whose laid back demeanour harbours dark secrets. All3Media International represents the show outside Australia.

Screen Australia is also funding three online productions including Roborovski, a 12-minute animated short/VR project produced by Dev Patel, Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Jomon Thomas

Scripted by John Collee, Patel and Cobham-Hervey, the tale follows a thimble sized hamster that spends his days in a pet shop longing to be adopted by a loving family. Patel and Cobham-Hervey, who met on the set of Anthony Marais’ film Hotel Mumbai, will co-direct.

Another is Australia’s Best Racer (8×5’), a mockumentary created by Michael O’Neill and Dylan Hesp and produced by Georgie Lewin, which centres on 18-year-old Taylor James as he attempts to infiltrate Launceston’s late-night street racing scene in his mum’s 1994 Holden.

Finally, The Listies Work for Peanuts (6×8’) from kids comedy duo Matthew Kelly and Richard Higgins will follow the pair as they cycle through a variety of bizarre jobs in order to pay their 10-year-old landlord Abernathy Peanuts. Judi McCrossin and Kate Keegan will produce the series alongside Kelly and Higgins.