New docos for ABC, SBS.

New documentaries on Norfolk Island, Caged fighting, Education, a referendum on Indigenous Australia and Australia’s most ultra-Orthodox Jewish subculture comprise new documentaries coming to ABC and SBS.

Screen Australia is investing $2.2 million in eight new documentary projects.

Graeme Mason, CEO of Screen Australia, said, “We want to ensure we maintain a robust documentary environment in Australia. The quality of our storytelling is recognised internationally – demonstrated by the seven Australian documentaries showcased next week at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. We have a great breadth of local filmmakers and producers and we want to enable them to make the important stories that educate, make an impact and are shared with audiences around the world.

“A broad range of stories will be supported that will show audiences a diverse snapshot of contemporary Australian subcultures – through the lives of hard-living fishermen, ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, Indigenous teenagers, cross-cultural love and multicultural cage-fighters. Larger canvas work exposes the extreme views surrounding Indigenous recognition in Australia, the hardship of island life and the truth about the nation’s education system.”

NATIONAL DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM (NDP)

THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION EXPERIMENT
4 x 60 mins
Cordell Jigsaw Productions Pty Ltd
Producers Michael Cordell, Toni Malone, Rick McPhee
Broadcaster ABC
Sales Cordell Jigsaw Distribution
Synopsis The Great Australian Education Experiment – taking the class to task, examining the status quo of the Australian education system.

I CAN CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT RECOGNITION (working title)
58 mins
Smith & Nasht Pty Ltd
Producers Simon Nasht, Ruth Cross
Writer/Director Simon Nasht
Broadcaster ABC
Synopsis As Australia heads to a referendum on Indigenous recognition, two fiercely opposed advocates travel the nation to see if they can change each other’s mind.

NORFOLK ISLAND (working title)
51 mins
Heiress Films Pty Ltd
Producer Jennifer Cummins
Director Martin Taylor
Broadcaster SBS
Sales SBS Distribution
Synopsis The residents of Norfolk Island are fiercely independent – but recent hard times have forced the island to reach out to Australia for help, and with mainland help comes mainland rules.

GENERAL DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM (GDP)

AUSTRALIA’S AMISH: THE SECRET WORLD OF ADASS ISRAEL
51 mins
Mint Pictures Pty Ltd
Producer Dan Goldberg
Executive Producer Adam Kay
Director Danny Ben-Moshe
Broadcaster SBS
Sales SBS Sales
Synopsis Australia’s Amish is a revealing observational documentary that opens an unprecedented window into Australia’s most ultra-Orthodox Jewish subculture – the small and highly reclusive Adass Israel community in Melbourne – as it battles to maintain its millennia-old ultra-Orthodox traditions in the face of modernity and all its subversive temptations and trappings.

CAGED
58 mins
In Films Pty Ltd
Producer Nial Fulton
Writer/Director Ivan O’Mahoney
Broadcaster SBS
Synopsis Caged follows the trials and tribulations of several mixed martial arts fighters in Sydney’s multicultural western suburbs. Some of whom carry the hopes of their community on their shoulders, others who might have followed a life of crime if not for the discipline of the contest, all of them fighting the media’s portrayal of cage-fighting as an ultra-violent free-for-all.

LOVE & MARRIAGE IN LITTLE INDIA
51 mins
360 Degree Films Pty Ltd
Producer Sally Ingleton
Writer/Director Sean Cousins
Broadcaster SBS
Sales SBS Commercial
Synopsis Three young people from Melbourne’s Little India search for marriage partners in a new land.

OVER THE EDGE: ‘WHERE ARE THEY NOW?’
52 mins
Earthstar Productions Pty Ltd
Producer Fran Dobbie
Executive Producer Carolyn Johnson
Writer/Director Benjamin Rose
Broadcaster SBS/NITV
Synopsis We revisit eight Indigenous teenagers, now young adults, five years after they went on a journey of self-discovery in 2009 as part of a series titled On the Edge.

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM (IDP)

SALT WATER HEROES
4 x 48 mins
Northern Pictures
Producer Karina Holden
Executive Producer Sue Clothier
Director Adam Geiger
Writer Colette Beaudry
Sales Discovery Australia
Synopsis Saltwater Heroes is a series about our toughest fisher folk and a disappearing way of life on the oceans that surround our island continent.