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Top End Wedding was a rom-com road trip that ended with the nuptials of Lauren and Ned. The series follow-up to the hit Australian movie picks up the couple’s story as they unexpectedly become parents.

“I thought there was more to Lauren and Ned, we only saw them within the very few stressful days leading up to their wedding,” says Miranda Tapsell who plays Lauren and co-wrote the movie and series with Joshua Tyler. “Josh and I always entertained the idea of what happens after happily ever after?”

It turns out what happens is parenthood. The couple assume parental duties for Taya (Gladys-May Kelly), aka the Bub of the title. Her mother, Lauren’s cousin, has died unexpectedly.

Lauren, a dynamic Indigenous lawyer ticking off life goals and Ned, her British husband, move back to the Top End (where the outback meets the tropics) to raise Bub. As they...

Prime Video, Guesswork Television, and Ok Great Productions today announced that Australian actor Luke Hemsworth has joined lead cast members Kate Box, Madeleine Sami, Nina Oyama, and Alicia Gardiner in Season 2 of the Prime Video global hit series Deadloch.

In the new season, Dulcie and Eddie are in Darwin investigating the death of Eddie’s former policing partner, Bushy. When a body is discovered in a remote town, they are flung into a new, sweatier, stickier investigation.

Photo courtesy of Prime Video

In the series, created and written by powerhouse comedy minds Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, Luke Hemsworth will play Jason Wade, creator and star of “Jason Wade’s Adventures Down Under” and the owner of “Jason Wade’s Land of Crocs and Other Animals Wildlife Park.”

Having completed filming in the Northern Territory, the Deadloch production has now moved to Queensland, utilizing the Brisbane studios and, for cast safety,...

Luke Hemsworth has joined the cast of Australian cop comedy Deadloch‘s second season on Prime Video.

The actor has been filming in his native Australia, joining leads Kate Box, Madeleine Sami, Nina Oyama and Alicia Gardiner in the comedy series, which has been hit for Amazon’s streaming service.

Hemsworth will play Jason Wade, creator and star of ‘Jason Wade’s Adventures Down Under’ and the owner of ‘Jason Wade’s Land of Crocs and Other Animals’ Wildlife Park.

The show follows Dulcie (Box) and Eddie (Sami), a pair of mismatched detectives. In the new season, they are investigating the death of Eddie’s former policing partner, Bushy. When a body is discovered in a remote town, they are flung into a new sweatier, stickier investigation.

Filming has wrapped in the croc-infested waters of the Northern Territories and moved to Brisbane’s studios in Queensland.

Amazon Prime Video Anz has released first-look images of Top End Bub, the sequel series to Top End Wedding, Wayne Blair’s 2019 road movie that proved to be a big hit in Australia for Universal Pictures.

The eight-part series is created, executive produced and written by Miranda Tapsell and Joshua Tyler and produced by Goalpost Pictures, and follows on from the events of Top End Wedding. Tapsell also plays Indigenous lawyer Lauren, one of the stars of the franchise.

When we last saw Lauren in Top End Wedding, she had married her British boyfriend Ned (Gwilym Lee) in her hometown of Darwin, despite some hiccups and familial drama along the way. Top End Bub sees Lauren and Ned head back up north when they discover that Lauren’s eight-year-old niece Bub has been orphaned. The couple decide to leave behind their life of comfort down south to look out for Bub,...

The Australian crime drama, Troppo, features an ensemble cast of talented and recognizable Australian actors, all led by American movie star, Thomas Jane. Troppo follows Ted Conkaffey, a former American cop who moved to Australia to escape some demons of his past. Set in Queensland, Troppo sees Ted working as a private investigator alongside his partner, Amanda Pharrell (Nicole Chamoun), a talented detective who has a dark history of her own. Together, the pair solve crimes around Crimson Lake, often bumping up against the police stationed there.

Like many shows set in Australia, Troppo puts the continent's unique location to good use. "Troppo" is Australian slang for, "going troppo", meaning "going mad" due to the unrelenting heat in Australia (via ABC) and that term comes into play often in Troppo, with characters often behaving angrily, irritably, and out of character. Season 2 premiered on July 5, 2024, and finished on August 24, 2024. This second...

Prime Video, Guesswork Television, and Ok Great Productions, with the support of Screen Queensland and Screen Territory, today announced that production has started on Deadloch Season 2. Filming on the six-part season is currently taking place in the Northern Territory, including Darwin and surrounds, before production moves to Brisbane, Queensland.

While a premiere date has not been announced yet, Deadloch Season 2 will launch globally on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories.

Created and written by powerhouse comedy minds Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, the second season features the return of lead stars Kate Box and Madeleine Sami in their roles as detectives Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe, along with Nina Oyama as Abby Matsuda and Alicia Gardiner as Cath York.

This season will also introduce new cast members, including Steve Bisley, Shari Sebbens, writer Jean Tong in their acting debut role, Genevieve Morris, Byron Coll, Nikki Britton, Anthony J Sharpe,...

Deadloch Unlocked

Production has begun in Darwin, Northern Territory, on season 2 of Prime Video’s Australian comedy series “Deadloch.” Filming will later relocate to Brisbane, Queensland.

The first season saw two very different female detectives thrown together to solve the murder of a man and was set in Tasmania. While the second season sees the return of Kate Box and Madeleine Sami as detectives Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe, they are joined by Steve Bisley (“The Great Gatsby”), Shari Sebbens (“The Sapphires”), writer Jean Tong (“Heartbreak High”) and in their acting debut role, Genevieve Morris, Byron Coll, Nikki Britton, Anthony J Sharpe, Blake Pavey, Damien Garvey, Ngali Shaw, Bev Killick, Ling Cooper-Tang, Ursula Yovich, Syd Brisbane, Ines English and Lennox Monaghan.

“Deadloch” S2 is created and written by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan who also serve as executive producers alongside Kevin Whyte and Tanya Phegan from Guesswork Television. Andy Walker is the producer.

Deadloch is heading north. Amazon Prime Video Australia’s hit comic murder mystery drama has begun production on its second season, and relocates the action from Tasmania to the sweltering heat and humidity of the Northern Territory.

In June, it was revealed that Amazon had renewed Deadloch. On Friday, the streamer offered up more details including a first-look production image and casting news for season two, which sees Detective Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami) and Senior Sergeant Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) travel to Darwin to investigate the death of Eddie’s former policing partner, Bushy. However, Eddie and Dulcie are drawn into a bigger mystery when the body of a local icon is discovered in a remote town right in the middle of croc country.

From left: Madeleine Sami, Kate Box, Kate McLennan, Kate McCartney, Nina Oyama and Alicia Gardiner

The six-episode second season of Deadloch will feature some familiar faces,...

This July, beat the heat with the latest additions at Prime Video and Freevee!

It’s a light month for original series, films, and specials as we head into the summer lull, but there is still plenty to watch throughout the month: over 140 classic films between the two Amazon streamers will be added this month, from horrors such as the genre-changing “The Silence Of The Lambs” and last year’s newest “Evil Dead” franchise installment “Evil Dead Rise,” the first five films of the “Rocky” franchise, and comedies like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Animal House,” “13 Going On 30,” and much, much more.

But after the majority of the film load drops on July 1, don’t forget to head back to the services’ additions throughout the month, including Season 2 of the critically acclaimed “Troppo,” the new “Legally Blonde“-like comedy “Space Cadet,” and a new documentary from award-winning documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter,...

Season two of Troppo has a premiere date. Amazon Freevee announced a July release date with a trailer. Thomas Jane, Nicole Chamoun, Radha Mitchell, Simon Lyndon, Angela Punch McGregor, Ling Cooper Tang, and Sara West return to star in the Australian crime drama series. They'll be joined by Zindzi Okenyo, Ursula Yovich, Miah Madden, Ethan Lwin, Chloe Delle-Vedov, and Brett Tucker.

Based on the novel Crimson Lake by Candice Fox, the first season of Troppo follows a former police officer (Jane) and a private investigator (Chamoun) as they search for look for a missing man.

Read More…...

Today, Prime Video and Amazon Freevee announced the second season of the gripping Australian crime series Troppo will premiere on July 25.

Stars Thomas Jane (Boogie Nights) and Nicole Chamoun (Safe Harbour) are back in the fictional rural town of Crimson Lake, in the tropical North of Australia, where another bizarre murder has taken place.

All eight episodes will be available on July 25, 2024, exclusively on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee in the U.S., UK, Germany, and Austria.

Six months after Ted Conkaffey (Thomas Jane) and Amanda Pharrell (Nicole Chamoun) solved their first murder case, the unlikely duo is now investigating the bizarre local murder of a healing retreat leader with connections to an exotic drug ring and a ‘bikie’ gang. While Amanda tangles with an old enemy and finds a new love interest, Ted’s past stalks him and his family to Crimson Lake — with deadly consequences.

Adapted for television by Yolanda Ramke,...

Filming Underway On New Alan Partridge BBC Series

Filming is underway on new Alan Partridge mockumentary And Did Those Feet. Deadline revealed the BBC series several months back and cameras have rolled on the latest Steve Coogan conception. The mockumentary follows the beloved comedy creation settling into life back in his Norfolk home after a year working in Saudi Arabia, but the adjustment has left him with a deep sense of unease. Over six episodes he will unpack what is missing in his life, explore why the nation is in such a funk and find out what it might take to keep a person funk-free. “This look into the state of the nation (and Alan’s own psyche) through a unique lens – that of Alan Partridge – promises to further bolster the already iconic repertoire of the most legendary comedy character in the UK,” said BBC comedy boss Jon Petrie. Coogan...

The Australian drama premiered at Cannes and stars Cate Blanchett.

Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy leads the nominations for the 2024 Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards with 12 nods, closely followed by horror Talk To Me with 11 nominations.

The New Boy is up for best film, actress for Cate Blanchett and actor for newcomer Aswan Reid while Australian Indigenous filmmaker Thornton is nominated for best director, screenplay and cinematography.

The film is set in 1940s Australia and stars Blanchett (who also serves as a producer) as a nun who takes in a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy. It...

‘Adapt to survive’ is a fitting mantra for the latest tense drama from The Assistant writer-director Kitty Green. This time, she places the star of her #MeToo-styled 2019 film, actor Julia Garner, in the heart of the Australian Outback to serve drinks to booze-addled patrons of a dysfunctional pub.

Inspired by fascinating 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, The Royal Hotel takes a compelling look at ingrained toxic masculinity and the dominance of alcohol culture, as well as sobering isolation through the eyes of two backpacking female foreigners. An uneasy, maddening decline into the inevitable, Green’s film explores the effects of the unhealthy environment on two independent young women and the choices they must make for their well-being.

‘Gen Z’ Americans Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick of Glass Onion fame) reluctantly take live-in bartending jobs fund the rest of their Australian trip after finances run out. Dropped off at the rundown Royal...

Writer/director Kitty Green made a big splash with her searing and smart drama The Assistant, which starred Julia Garner as a young woman toiling away in the office of a powerful executive who grows increasingly aware of the insidious abuse that threatens every aspect of her position. Green and Garner are back with a new movie that looks at power dynamics between men and women, this time set against the dusty backdrop of a small Australian Outback mining town. With the new film – The Royal Hotel – making its UK debut at the BFI London Film Festival, we now have the full UK trailer. Take a look…

The Royal Hotel, for which Green drew inspiration from documentary Hotel Coolgardie, sees Garner and Jessica Henwick as Hanna and Liv, best friends backpacking in Australia.

After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, persuades Hanna to take a temporary...

A pair of American tourists working to support their travels contend with rampant misogyny and sexual aggression from hostile patrons at a remote Australian bar. The Royal Hotel makes less sense with each passing minute. The young women, supposedly best friends who look out for each other, have radically different views of an obviously dangerous situation. Self-preservation becomes a point of contention when it shouldn't. I didn't buy the premise or their reactions. The film has decent thriller moments but is entirely unbelievable. It also generalizes Aussie men as dangerous, sexist perverts and drunken louts.

Liv (Jessica Henwick) dances feverishly on a party boat in Sydney. She flirts with the cute bartender when buying another drink. His countenance changes when her credit card gets declined. Meanwhile, on the deck, a playful Hanna (Julia Garner) makes out with Torsten (Herbert Nordrum), a random Swedish guy she just met. They cheer as...

“They’re all nice for a minute,” says Kitty Green, director of the sizzling thriller The Royal Hotel. She’s talking about the men that make up most of the film’s ensemble cast — Australian miners in a remote, rugged, Outback town — who can pivot from playful pub banter to grinning malevolence without warning. What might they do after one pint too many?

It’s a question any young woman tending bar has asked herself, and in Green’s frighteningly plausible tale, the heavily outnumbered women serving these men drinks...

Deep in the Australian Outback, Kitty Green is, once again, asking us to sit on a knife’s edge, where the threat of violence is constant. In The Assistant, which also starred Julia Garner as a headstrong underling in an environment dominated by men, Green was attuned to the systemic abuses of the entertainment industry. In The Royal Hotel, she considers the ways infrastructural inequities pervade even in the most remote corners of our world.

Green’s film is loosely based on the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, in which director Pete Gleeson provided a glimpse into a remote mining town where backpackers are cycled in and out as bartenders, or, as a sandwich board labels them in The Royal Hotel, “fresh meat” to be ogled at and harassed. Here, that fresh meat is Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick), two American tourists who’ve desperately sought out a work-tourism exchange program...

After running out of money on their holiday to Australia, Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) look for work to keep things alive. There's not much available, but then they spot something. "Physically, it's not a demanding job. The only thing that can be a little bothersome is the remoteness of the location," the traveling holiday agent tells them, before adding: "You're gonna have to be comfortable with a little male attention." Judging by their reactions, neither of them is particularly thrilled about the idea, but with no cash left, what choice do they have?

Hanna and Liv are driven to a highly remote dive bar called The Royal Hotel run by Billy (an excellent Hugo Weaving), an alcoholic with a short fuse, and Carol (Ursula Yovich), his long-suffering partner trying to hold things together. The red flags pile up almost immediately -- their employers have no interest in their travel documents,...

In 2019, Australian documentary filmmaker Kitty Green made her first narrative movie, a piercing almost cinéma vérité-style movie focused on an office assistant in a Tribeca film company run by a not-so-thinly disguised Harvey Weinstein. The male culture there and the sexual acts of the boss made it almost a modern horror story at the height of the #MeToo movement. For Green’s second narrative film she has changed up the filmmaking style considerably, but with The Royal Hotel which premiered last week at Telluride and now premieres tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, she is taking an even deeper look at the dark side of men as seen through the female gaze in a broken down hotel bar in a desolate part of the Australian Outback.

Based on Pete Gleeson’s 2017 documentary about two Scandinavian girls stuck at the Hotel Coolgardie, the actual set-up here would make it ideal for a horror movie,...

Plot: Two backpacking Canadians (Julia Garner & Jessica Henwick) find themselves low on cash and work as bartenders in a small pup in a remote mining town in Australia.

Review: Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel is exceptional for about ninety percent of its running time. Beautifully shot at an abandoned bar in Yatina, South Australia, a town that consists of only twenty-nine people, the movie is a thoroughly compelling look at the culture of booze, brawling, and misogyny in remote Australia and what happens when two regular, North American girls are dropped right in the middle of it. But, the finale gets a little too close to straight-ahead thriller territory, ending what had up to then been a compelling drama about menace and the constant threat of violence on a somewhat false note. It starts like Wake in Fright but ends like Straw Dogs, and the switch-up doesn’t work.

Director Kitty Green and Julia Garner reunite in the first trailer for The Royal Hotel, an Australian thriller that takes a dark turn. The film follows two friends who try to survive by getting temp jobs at The Royal Hotel but soon find themselves trapped in a living hell of harassment. Julia Garner's versatile acting skills are once again showcased in The Royal Hotel, alongside co-star Jessica Henwick, who has also had success in major franchises.

Director Kitty Green and Julia Garner reunite in the first trailer for Neon's upcoming Australian thriller The Royal Hotel, which debuted as part of the 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival prior to its theatrical release on October 6. Green made her directional debut with The Assistant in 2019, a movie that had the Ozark star as the lead. In that film, Garner plays Jane, a woman that gets her dream job as...

For the first minute of The Royal Hotel trailer everything seems fine. But then the tone suddenly shifts, and everything about the environment Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick’s characters find themselves in turns menacing.

Julia Garner (Ozark) stars as Hanna, Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion) is Liv, Toby Wallace (The Society) plays Matty, and Hugo Weaving (the Lord of the Rings films) is Billy. The cast also includes Ursula Yovich as Carol, Daniel Henshall as Dolly, James Frecheville as Teeth, and Herbert Nordrum as Torsten.

The Royal Hotel writer/director Kitty Green made her feature film directorial debut with 2019’s critically acclaimed The Assistant, which also starred Julia Garner. Oscar Redding co-wrote the screenplay, Michael Latham is the director of photography, Leah Popple is the production designer, Mariot Kerr is the costume designer, and Kasra Rassoulzadegan is the editor.

Neon offered this description of the thriller:

“Americans Hanna and Liv...

Pete Gleeson’s 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie came and went on the festival circuit, but it made a strong impression on those who caught it. Following two young Finnish tourists who get a work placement at a bar in a middle-of-nowhere Australian mining town, it captured harrowing footage of subjects putting up with a bombardment of sexist remarks and behaviors from the (largely male) regulars and their manager. What made Gleeson’s film so effective was how irrelevant the camera was; the town’s toxic, misogynist culture was so normalized that no one batted an eye at what they put the two women through.

Kitty Green saw Hotel Coolgardie while on a festival jury, and the film impacted her so much she’s now adapted it into The Royal Hotel, a tense yet uneven thriller that sensationalizes its source material in almost all of the right places. In Green’s take,...

A year and a half has gone by since it was announced that Julia Garner (Ozark) and Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections) had signed on to star in The Royal Hotel, an Australian production that was being described as a “social thriller”. The project was a reunion for Garner and director Kitty Green, as they had previously worked together on Green’s feature directorial debut, the 2019 drama The Assistant. The Royal Hotel has since made its way through production and had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival – and now it’s ready to be seen by a wider audience. Neon will be giving the film a theatrical release on October 6th, and today a trailer has dropped online. You can check it out in the embed above.

Also starring Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) and said to be inspired by true events, The Royal Hotel follows Hanna (Garner) and...

"We have sunshine and booze-in-a-box. Let's put up with it for a few weeks." Neon has revealed the first official trailer for The Royal Hotel, the second narrative feature made by acclaimed Australian filmmaker Kitty Green, her follow-up to The Assistant. This recently premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival last weekend, and will next be playing at Toronto, London, San Sebastian, and the Adelaide Film Festival in Australia. Americans Hanna & Liv are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called 'The Roval Hotel' in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture but soon Hanna & Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control. This stars Julia Garner & Jessica Henwick,...

Julia Garner needs no assistance leading a chilling thriller.

The “Ozark” breakout star reunites with her “The Assistant” writer/director Kitty Green for Neon’s “The Royal Hotel.”

Per the official synopsis, Americans Hanna (Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called The Royal Hotel in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy (Hugo Weaving) and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture but soon Hanna and Livy find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.

Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville, and Herbert Nordrum also star. “The Royal Hotel” premiered at Telluride and is produced by lain Canning, Emile Sherman, Liz Watts, and Kath Shelper.

In Kitty Green’s brilliant narrative feature debut “The Assistant,” it would have been appropriate for the film’s mostly silent and tormented junior associate (Julia Garner) to pick up an axe or burn down the whole damn place in response to the emotional torture she’d been subjected to in an unglamorous yet high-profile film production office.

Structured with metronomic perfection, “The Assistant” wasn’t that thriller, however—instead, it was a quietly harrowing one that kept you screaming on the inside. “The Royal Hotel,” on the other hand, is that thriller where Green flexes her genre muscles impeccably.

Also starring a flawless Julia Garner—this time, alongside an equally terrific Jessica Henwick—Green’s sophomore narrative is once again focused on the distresses and perils of being a young woman in the world, polluted by the dangerous gaze and entitlement of men. It’s a wild ride start to finish,...

Four years after director Kitty Green and actor Julia Garner channeled whispers and silence into the stuff of workplace horror in The Assistant, they reunite for a movie that turns up the volume and ratchets up the fear and loathing. Way up.

Instead of the careerist corridors of Manhattan, the setting is a mining town in Australia — specifically, a hotel bar frequented by hard-drinking men. Garner, again, is extraordinary, and the chemistry between her and an equally superb Jessica Henwick, as best friends whose backpacking adventure takes a detour into a kind of hell, doesn’t hit a false note. Yet despite the flawless performances and outstanding craftsmanship, The Royal Hotel is a pummeling experience rather than a revelatory one.

For her second narrative feature, and her first film set and filmed in her native Australia, Green was inspired by the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, in which Pete Gleeson chronicles the...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival. Neon releases the film in theaters on Friday, October 6.

Following 2019’s deeply unnerving “The Assistant” with another razor-sharp Julia Garner collaboration, Australian filmmaker Kitty Green has decided to strand her favorite actress in one of the few places on Earth more dangerous for a young woman than Harvey Weinstein’s production office: A shithole bar on the border of an ultra-remote mining town so deep within the Australian outback that no one there has even heard of the #MeToo movement. Welcome to “The Royal Hotel.”

The good news is that Garner’s character isn’t alone; Hanna’s on an open-ended vacation with her friend Liv (Jessica Henwick) when the two run out of money on a party boat in Sydney and decide to sign up for the last Work & Travel job available. The bad news is...

Australian actors Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths have begun production on the final six-episode season of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s award-winning female-led political drama series “Total Control.”

With screenplays by Stuart Page, Julia Moriarty, Pip Karmel and Meyne Wyatt, season three picks up almost two years after the explosive events of the second season.

Outsider turned kingmaker, Alex Irving (Mailman), is completely at home in the nation’s capital. While Rachel Anderson (Griffiths), now an occasional ally, is threatening to upend the entire system by establishing her own political party. However, as Alex attempts to carve out a nation changing legacy, a controversy engineered by her enemies threatens to destroy her career and public reputation. In the final season, Alex must make a choice: either she can stay true to her principles and accept defeat, or she can get her hands dirty and fight back.

Directed by Wayne Blair and Jub Clerc,...

Australian talent will be front and centre in Matchbox Pictures/NBCUniversal International Studios’ drama Irreverent when it starts production in Queensland tomorrow.

Kylie Bracknell, Calen Tassone, Briallen Clarke, Tegan Stimson, Ed Oxenbould, Wayne Blair, Russell Dykstra, and Jason Wilder will be series regulars on the Netflix and Peacock co-commission, with Susie Porter, Bridie McKim, Martin Sacks, and Ursula Yovich also set to appear.

Created by Paddy Macrae, Irreverent follows criminal mediator Paulo Keegan (Colin Donnell) as he flees the United States after a mediation gone wrong and assumes the identity of Reverend Mackenzie “Mack” Boyd in Clump, a small, Australian beach town hundreds of miles away from civilization and phone reception.

While there, he encounters Piper (Bracknell), a gifted cop who has returned to her hometown after a successful start to her career in the city, and begins to suspect he isn’t who he says he is. Clarke plays...

The second season of ABC’s Mystery Road, lockdown ABC comedy Retrograde and Sbs thriller Hungry Ghosts have won the 11th annual Equity Ensemble Awards.

The actors who starred in these programs were recently voted the most outstanding Australian small screen ensembles in their respective categories by the Meaa Equity National Performers’ Committee (Npc).

Equity president Jason Klarwein said: “There’s never been a more important time to celebrate Australian stories and the talented Meaa members who bring them to life. As our industry begins to recover from the last 12 months we must stand together and campaign for more quality local productions like our finalists and winners across every platform.”

Retrograde, which stars Pallavi Sharda, Ilai Swindells, Maria Angelico, Esther Hannaford, Nick Boshier and Max Brown, won in the comedy category.

Judges said of the Unless Pictures and Orange Entertainment Co series: “Through their zoom the characters negotiate their friendships,...

Production in and around Sydney, Australia has started on “Preppers,” a comedy series about the end of the world.

Directed by Steven McGregor (“Black Comedy”), “Preppers” follows a young Aboriginal woman whose world crumbles around her after experiencing a personal, cataclysmic event. Escaping the fallout, she finds herself at the center of a mismatched community of doomsday preppers.

“Preppers” stars Nakkiah Lui who also co-wrote the series with Gabriel Dowrick.

Penny Smallacombe, head of the First Nations Department at Screen Australia said: “Nakkiah Lui has a track record of creating boundary-pushing comedy and we’re proud to support her and the rest of the talented creative team in bringing this hilarious and clever series to life. Who doesn’t need a few lessons in Prepping!”

The show is a Porchlight Films production in association with Spirit Pictures. The series producer is Sylvia Warmer, with Porchlight’s Liz Watts and the...

ABC doomsday comedy Preppers has started filming in Sydney, with the six-part series set to air later this year.

Directed by Steven McGregor, Preppers follows Charlie (Nakkiah Lui), a young Aboriginal woman whose world crumbles around her after experiencing a personal, cataclysmic event.

Escaping the fallout, Charlie finds herself at the centre of a hilariously mismatched community of doomsday preppers.

Written by Lui and Gabriel Dowrick, the cast includes Ursula Yovich, Chum Ehelepola , Meyne Wyatt, Aaron McGrath, Eryn Jean Norvill, Jack Charles, Grant Denyer, Christine Anu, Miranda Tapsell, Brooke Satchwell, Luke Carroll and singer Kate Miller-Heidke.

Preppers is a Porchlight Films production, in association with Spirit Pictures. Sylvia Warmer produces, with Liz Watts executive producing alongside Margaret Ross from the ABC.

Backers include Screen Australia’s First Nations Department, while there has also been a major production investment from the ABC, in association with Screen Nsw.

Lui and Dowrick, a wife and husband team,...

Until there is diverse representation on stage and screen, not all Australians will feel acknowledged as a part of the society they live in, according Ursula Yovich.

The Burarra and Serbian actress, playwright, singer and songwriter delivered the inaugural Nida Naidoc Week Lecture yesterday, using her speech to call for cultural change that will lead to greater representation in the arts.

Yovich recounted that when she was young, she loved singing and religiously woke up at 6am each Saturday morning to watch ABC’s Rage.

And yet it wasn’t until she saw Whitney Houston for the first time that she ever imagined that a singing career was viable.

“I loved Tina Arena, John Farnham, Something for Kate, Crowded House, Wendy Matthews, Inxs, Australian Crawl, Midnight Oil and Icehouse. But I never felt that I could actually become a singer, because that career path was not for people like me.

‘Little J and Big Cuz’.

A third season of animated series Little J and Big Cuz, produced by Ned Lander Media, Media World and Blue Rocket, is in pre-production for Nitv and ABC Kids, to air in 2021.

Director Tony Thorne joins the writing team for this season, together with short fiction writer Adam Thompson, as well as Dot West, Erica Glynn, Beck Cole, Danielle MacLean and Sam Paynter.

The series, based on an Indigenous perspective on the Early Years Learning Framework, has been translated into 11 different Indigenous languages, with the third expected to be translated further. It follows Little J, Big Cuz and their friends, as they’re guided by Nanna and Old Dog and explore Nanna’s wonderful backyard and Ms Chen’s classroom.

The voice cast includes Deborah Mailman, Miranda Tapsell, Aaron Fa’oaso, Ursula Yovich, Renee Lim and Shari Sebbens.

Nitv channel manager Tanya Orman said: “Here at Nitv,...

‘The Nightingale’.

Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale was honoured as the Best Film at Film Critics Circle of Australia (Fcca) Awards yesterday evening, with the film’s star Aisling Franciosi also awarded Best Actress.

At a ceremony in Sydney hosted by Les Asmussen, David Michôd was presented with the Best Director prize for The King, and Joel Edgerton Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Together, Michôd and Edgerton also won the gong for Best Screenplay (original or adapted) for the Netflix film.

For his work in Judy & Punch, Damon Herriman picked up the award for Best Actor, while Danger Close: The Battle Of Long Tan dominated the craft awards, with Ben Nott winning Best Cinematography, Caitlin Yeo Best Original Score and Veronika Jenet Best Editor.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role went to Ursula Yovich for her performance in Top End Wedding.

The award for Best Feature Documentary was shared by two films,...

Cate Blanchett in ‘Stateless.’ (Photo: Ben King).

The first two episodes of Matchbox Pictures’ Stateless and the second series of Bunya Productions’ Mystery Road will have their world premieres at the sixth edition of the Berlin International Film Festival’s Berlinale Series.

In addition, Goalpost’s Dark Victory from writer-director Matthew Saville is among eight titles selected for the Co-Pro Series 2020, which seeks to link projects with international partners.

Adapted from the book by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, Dark Victory is the story of the Howard government’s refusal to allow Norwegian frieghter Tampa, with hundreds of mainly Afghan refugees on board, to enter Christmas Island.

The Berlinale Series line-up consists of eight series from around the world including Damien Chazelle’s Paris-set musical-drama The Eddy for Netflix, Jason Segel’s AMC series Dispatches from Elswehere and the BBC-HBO Max’s Trigonometry.

“An abundance of topics and...

"When you're hurting', where do you go lookin'?" Samuel Goldwyn Film has released an official Us trailer for indie romantic comedy Top End Wedding, an Australian film that premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival. This "heartwarming, feel-good comedy" is set against the spectacular natural beauty of the Northern Territory. The story follows a newly engaged couple, Lauren and Ned. They are in love, and they have just ten days to find her mother who has gone Awol somewhere in the remote far north of Australia, in order to reunite her parents and pull off their dream wedding. Starring Miranda Tapsell (from The Sapphires) & Gwilym Lee (from Bohemian Rhapsody) as the two lovers, plus Huw Higginson, Ursula Yovich, Elaine Crombie, Shari Sebbens, Kerry Fox, and Dalara Williams. Looks charming and fun. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Wayne Blair's Top End Wedding, direct from YouTube: You can...

Rarriwuy Hick in Wentworth (Photo credit: Xinger Xanger).

In her seven year screen career Wentworth star Rarriwuy Hick has been nominated for several awards and has won one: but what a prize.

The Arnhem Land-raised Hick was named female actor of the year at the 2019 National Dreamtime Awards last month; Rob Collins was declared male actor of the year.

Nova Peris received the lifetime achievement award and Ashleigh Barty had the dual accolades of person of the year and female sportsperson.

The other nominees for female actor were Miranda Tapsell, Ursula Yovich and Madeleine Madden. “Just to be nominated with those girls was awesome,” Rarriwuy tells If. “It was totally unexpected; I am not used to winning.”

Founded three years ago, the awards celebrate the success and achievements of Australia’s First Nations people. Nominations were submitted by the public and the winners chosen by an expert panel.

Arguably Hick...

‘Top End Wedding.’

Americans will have the chance to see Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding early next year, but only on VOD and other digital platforms.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired the Us rights to the romantic comedy which raked in $5.26 million in Australian cinemas, the year’s second highest grosser behind Ride Like a Girl’s $11.5 million.

The specialty distributor plans a multi-platform release on February 21, its third recent Oz acquisition following Mirrah Foulkes’ Judy & Punch and Koko: A Red Dog Story, the third edition of the franchise written and directed by Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce, which opens here on 80 screens tomorrow.

“Top End Wedding is a delightfully fun romantic comedy that also showcases the breathtaking beauty of Australia,” says Meg Longo of Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Goalpost Pictures’ Rosemary Blight, who produced with Kylie du Fresne and Kate Croser, added: “The team at Samuel Goldwyn are passionate...

Nominations for the 9th annual Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) Awards were unveiled in Sydney on Oct. 23, with Jennifer Kent‘s “The Nightingale” sweeping the film nominations with 15 nominations. The period thriller follow-up to Kent’s horror directorial debut “The Babadook” was followed closely by Anthony Maras‘ true story thriller “Hotel Mumbai” and Oscar nominee David Michod‘s Netflix period picture “The King,” with 13 bids apiece. On the TV side, gothic period drama “Lambs of God” shattered Aacta records with 14 nominations across TV categories, with an additional four subscription television award nominations. Winners will be revealed at a luncheon on Dec. 2 and a ceremony two days later.

Other nominees this year include Timothee Chalamet (“The King”), Dev Patel (“Hotel Mumbai”), Ben Mendelsohn (“The King”), Hilary Swank (“I Am Mother”), Ann Dowd (“Lambs of God”), Rachel Griffiths (“Total Control”) and Jacki Weaver (“Bloom”). Previous Aacta Award winner Damon Herriman...

Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale tops the nominations pool for film at this year’s Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (Aacta).

The thriller, which debuted at Venice last year where it won a special jury prize, picked up 15 nods including best film and best direction.

Australian actor Damon Herriman is up for supporting actor for his role in The Nightingale, and also lead actor for his performance in Mirrah Foulkes’ Judy & Punch, which picked up a total of nine nominations including best film.

Herriman is also nominated twice on the TV side for roles in Lambs Of God and Mr Inbetween and has now become the Aacta record holder for the most nominations across performance categories. The actor is having a banner 2019, having also played Charles Manson in both Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and the Netflix series Mindhunter this year.

Tied...

‘Lambs of God’.

Lingo Pictures’ four-part TV drama Lambs of God has collected an unprecedented 18 Aacta Award nominations, while Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale leads in film with 15 nods.

The Australian Academy revealed the full list of nominees for the annual awards today, with almost 60 to be presented across two events in Sydney in six weeks time.

Some 15 films are up for awards, though four dominate almost every category: Kent’s revenge tale, Anthony Maras’ debut feature Hotel Mumbai and David Michôd’s Netflix-backed The King, which each received 13 nominations, and Mirrah Foulkes’ dark comedy Judy & Punch, which earned nine. Each is nominated for Best Film alongside Rachel Griffiths’ Ride Like A Girl and Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding.

Up in the Best Indie Film category (budgeted under $2 million) are Thomas M. Wright’s Acute Misfortune, Heath Davis’ Book Week, Rodd Rathjen’s Buoyancy, Imogen Thomas’ Emu...

‘Faboriginal’. (Photo: Kelly Gardner)

Art, camp and Indigenous culture collide in the Nitv/Sbs-commissioned quiz show Faboriginal, produced by Noble Savage Pictures.

Hosted and co-created by actor and comedian Steven Oliver, the 8 x 30 serial trivia show features an all Indigenous cast and guest panellists who are challenged by the quizmaster on Indigenous art and culture. Production has recently wrapped, to air early 2020 on Nitv followed by Sbs On Demand.

“We’ve built a show that is wickedly funny, entertaining, smart and political. Faboriginal is unapologetically black, unapologetically camp and unapologetically art focused,” says Noble Savage Pictures producer Majhid Heath.

Heath saw taking on the light entertainment format space as natural new ground to break. It was a way of engaging audiences with Indigenous art and culture with levity and comedy, while celebrating established and emerging Indigenous actors, writers, musicians and artists.

“After all the recent success Indigenous filmmakers have had in documentary,...

Aaron Pedersen and Jada Alberts in ‘Mystery Road 2’ (Photo: David Dare Parker).

Swedish actress Sofia Helin, who starred in all four seasons of The Bridge, is co-starring with Aaron Pedersen in the second series of Bunya Productions’ ABC crime drama Mystery Road.

Helin, who played Saga Norén, a homicide detective from Malmö, in the Swedish/Danish film noir crime series which screened here on Sbs, is cast as archaeologist Professor Sondra Elmquist.

The professor is conducting a dig near a remote coastal town when she encounters Pedersen’s Detective Jay Swan, who has moved to the town to be closer to his family and is investigating a grisly case.

Warwick Thornton and Wayne Blair are sharing the directing duties on the six episodes produced by David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin, with Thornton as the Dop.

Two weeks into the 10 weeks shoot in Broome and the Dampier Peninsular, the series is...

Huw Higginson.

Huw Higginson often plays admirable, upstanding characters but sometimes he gets more of a kick out of tackling villains.

In the past year the English-born actor has portrayed a brutish magistrate in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale and a serial killer truck driver in Playmaker Media’s Mandarin series Chosen directed by Tony Tilse.

He played more nuanced characters including the abandoned husband and father of Miranda Tapsell’s bride-to-be in Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding; a lawyer who represents the family of a missing priest (Sam Reid) in Lingo Pictures/Foxtel’s drama Lambs of God; and a wealthy gentleman who sends his ward to boarding school in Fremantle/Foxtel’s Picnic at Hanging Rock.

“Unpleasant characters are often more interesting to play,” says the actor who played the well-meaning Constable George Garfield in The Bill for 10 years. “You have to try to find something to...

Top End Wedding red carpet at Sundance. Miranda Tapsell, Wayne Blair and Gwilym Lee, fifth, sixth and seventh from right back row. Joshua Tyler, second left front row Photo: 2019 Sundance Institute/Jemal Countess Among the lighter films at this year’s Sundance was Australian rom-com Top End Wedding. Directed by The Sapphires Wayne Blair, it marks the feature writing debut of its star Miranda Tapsell and her co-writer Joshua Tyler. Tapsell plays Lauren, a driven lawyer who has just become engaged to her boyfriend Ned. Given a tiny window of opportunity for the wedding by her boss, she and Ned head up to Darwin in the Northern Territory for the nuptials, only to find her dad (Huw Higginson) crying in a cupboard, and her mum (Ursula Yovich) gone walkabout, prompting a road trip that will see Lauren connect with the part of her family she has never met.

At Sundance,...

‘Animals’.

Adelaide Film Festival will hold pop up screenings of Top End Wedding and Animals in early April, marking each film’s official Australian premiere.

Both films – which each made their world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January to critical acclaim – were made with the support of the Adelaide Film Festival investment fund. Each will premiere with a red carpet gala screening and after party, with a screening and Q&A the following day.

Adelaide Film Festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting said: “Adelaide Film Festival is thrilled to present the Australian premieres of Sophie Hyde’s Animals and Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding, giving audiences the chance to be among the first in the world to see these fine works. Diverse in their nature, both films are immensely compelling and entertaining films we encourage Adelaide audiences to embrace at the Adl Film Fest April Pop Up.