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South Australian screen productions to watch in your holiday break
23 December 2021
The long, lazy summer break is the perfect time to crash on the couch and catch up on your film and TV viewing – and we’ve got the perfect selection of South Australian made productions ready for you to stream on demand!
Check out these amazing SAFC supported films and TV series either out now or premiering soon – or check out our SA Made Showcase for even more content available now on demand.
THE TOURIST
Premieres 2 January, 2022 on Stan
This exciting new BBC One, Stan, HBO Max and ZDF drama series starring Jamie Dornan is already attracting serious critical buzz in the UK, with London’s Evening Standard naming it as one of the best new shows for 2022, The Times calling it “not your typical BBC drama” and Belfast Live describing it as “unexpectedly funny, explosive, dark and twisted”.
Dornan (Belfast, A Private War, The Fall) stars as “The Man”, a British man who finds himself in the glowing red heart of the Australian outback being pursued by a vast tank truck trying to drive him off the road. An epic cat and mouse chase unfolds and The Man later wakes in hospital, hurt, but somehow alive – except he has no idea who he is. With merciless figures from his past pursuing him, The Man’s search for answers propels him through the vast and unforgiving outback.
The biggest budget television series ever to shoot in South Australia, the six part mystery drama series was filmed this year in the Flinders Ranges, in and around Adelaide city and at the SAFC’s Adelaide Studios, and also stars Danielle MacDonald (Unbelievable, Dumplin’, Patti Cake$), Shalom Brune-Franklin (Line of Duty, Roadkill), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped, The Missing), Alex Dimitriades (The End, The Cry), and Damon Herriman (Mindhunter, Justified).
Written by acclaimed writers Harry and Jack Williams, The Tourist is produced by South Australian producer Lisa Scott of Adelaide Studios based Highview Productions in association with Two Brothers Pictures, the Emmy-winning production company behind The Missing and Fleabag.
THE TOURIST premieres 2 January, 2022 on Stan – click here to find out more
GOLD
Premieres in cinemas 13 January, 2022 and on Stan 26 January, 2022
Hollywood star Zac Efron (The Greatest Showman, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile) joins AACTA Award winning director, co-writer and producer Anthony Hayes (Animal Kingdom, The Light Between Oceans, War Machine) and Susie Porter (Ladies in Black, The Second) in this thrilling new Stan Original feature film about greed and the lengths people will go to secure themselves a fortune.
Efron and Hayes star as two drifters travelling through the outback who stumble across the biggest gold nugget ever found. The dream of immense wealth and greed takes hold, and they hatch a plan to protect and excavate their bounty with one man leaving to secure the necessary equipment. But as the other man remains, enduring the harsh desert climate, preying wolves and intruders, he must battle the creeping doubt that he has been abandoned to his own fate.
Filmed in late 2020 around Leigh Creek in the Flinders Ranges, the film is produced by John Schwarz and Michael Schwarz’s Deeper Water Films (Killerman, Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan), alongside Hayes for Rogue Star Pictures, with South Australian co-producer Julie Byrne of Adelaide Studios based production company Triptych Pictures.
GOLD premieres 13 January, 2022 in cinemas and 26 January, 2022 on Stan – click here to find out more
FIREBITE
Episodes now streaming weekly on AMC+
This exciting new vampire series from award-winning Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher has raked in rave reviews since its premiere on 16 December, scoring four stars across the board from The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, Australian Book Review and Screenhub.
Set in the fictional desert town of Opal City (a stand-in for South Australia’s iconic opal mining town Coober Pedy, where the series was filmed), Firebite follows First Nations Australian hunters Tyson and Shanika on their quest to battle the last colony of vampires in South Australia – the last stronghold of vampires shipped from Britain to Australia in 1788 by the colonial superpower to eradicate the Indigenous populations.
Sheltering from the sun in the underground mines and tunnels that surround the town until the present day, the colony’s numbers and hunger is growing. War is coming. Tyson and Shanika stand vanguard to the war. But what hope does an expertly reckless man full of bravado and a 17-year-old orphan possibly have to defeat these vicious blood-thirsty parasites, when legions of warriors before them have failed?
Filmed this year in Coober Pedy and at the SAFC’s Adelaide Studios, and produced by Adelaide Studios based South Australian producer Paul Ranford, Firebite stars Rob Collins (Cleverman, Extraction) as Tyson with newcomer Shantae Barnes-Cowan as Shanika, alongside Yael Stone (Orange is the New Black) as barkeeper Eleona and Callan Mulvey (Avengers: End Game) as the vampire king Josiah.
Episode one of Firebite is available to stream now via AMC+, with episodes dropping weekly. Find out more about the series here.
FIREBITE drops weekly on AMC+, available in Australia as an add-on package to Amazon Prime or Apple TV – click here to find out how to get it.
A SUNBURNT CHRISTMAS
Now streaming on Stan
Hailed as a new Aussie Christmas classic this fun family film released in 2020 scored four stars from The Guardian, with Mamamia declaring it “the antidote to every cheesy American Christmas movie” and the Sydney Morning Herald describing it as “loads of fun … as Aussie as two vanilla slices with a sprig of wattle on top”.
On an Outback farm that’s seen hard times, single mum Fiona (Ling Cooper Tang) and her three kids Hazel (Tatiana Goode), Daisy (Lena Nankivell) and Tom (Eadan McGuinness) struggle to keep their life together. With Dad recently passed away and Mum slowly losing the plot, it is 14-year-old Hazel who shoulders the burden, managing the failing farm and keeping her younger siblings from careering completely off the rails. They all suspect there won’t be much Christmas joy this year, but when a strange man dressed as Santa Claus (Daniel Henshall) crashes a van full of toys onto their property, their world is turned upside down in ways they could never have imagined.
Produced by South Australian producer Lisa Scott of Adelaide Studios based Highview Productions in collaboration with Every Cloud Productions, this Stan Original film is the perfect family watch this festive season.
A SUNBURNT CHRISTMAS is now streaming on Stan – click here to watch it now!
Want more? Check out our SA Made Showcase which lists SAFC supported feature film, television, short film, multimedia and documentary productions filmed and produced in South Australia from 1975 to today, complete with streaming links!