News

Exclusive: Stan is saying goodbye to the Chalmers-Davis family.

The Australian streamer has put a fifth and final season of Bump into production, with filming underway in Sydney. The comedy-drama is Stan’s longest-running local scripted series, with the first season having launched back in January 2021.

The show is centered around ambitious teenage girl Oly, who unexpectedly has a baby, and the complications that follow for the Davis and Chalmers families.

The final season will hint at the future for the lead characters, jumping between past and present, as they face the cancer diagnosis of Oly’s mother Angie (Claudia Karvan) and try to celebrate the joy of Oly’s second pregnancy. Stan is providing the audience with a chance to be an extra by providing 30-second videos explaining what they’d like to see happen in the final episodes.

Nathalie Morris (We Were Dangerous), who plays Oly, will return...

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,...

The second season of Total Control will launch on the ABC November 7.

In the first season, political newcomer Alex Irving (Deborah Mailman) engineered a coup against Rachel Anderson (Rachel Griffiths), the Prime Minister who appointed her to the Senate.

In season two, both Alex and Rachel find themselves treading different political paths. After being dumped by her own party, Rachel relies on strategist Nick Pearce (Alex Dimitriades) to guide her political ambitions, while Alex finds herself surrounded by a new team, led by her brother Charlie (Rob Collins). But politics can be a nasty business. Will Alex’s determination and the tenacity of her grass-roots driven team be enough? Can she survive a system determined to shake everything she values? And can these political adversaries become political allies?

Reprising their roles in the Blackfella Films series are Rob Collins, Wes Patten, Anthony Hayes, William McInnes, Huw Higginson and Lisa Flanagan,...

Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths will be joined on screen by a host of new faces for the second season of the ABC/Blackfella Films’ Total Control, including Wayne Blair, who will also direct all six episodes.

Steph Tisdell stars in her first dramatic role, alongside other new cast members such as Alex Dimitriades, Colin Friels, Harry Greenwood, Rob Carlton, Daniella Farinacci, Brenna Harding, Benedict Hardie, and Anita Hegh.

Returning are Rob Collins, Anthony Hayes, William McInnes, Huw Higginson, Wes Patten, Lisa Flanagan and Harry Richardson.

Filming is currently underway, with production to take place across Sydney; Canberra, including at Parliament House, and Broken Hill.

The first season of the multiple Aacta Award-winning drama saw political newcomer Alex Irving (Mailman) engineer a coup against Rachel Anderson (Griffiths), the Prime Minister who appointed her to the Senate.

Season two sees Alex running as an independent. She’ll be ready for the...

"What are you waiting for, kid?" Gravitas has debuted an official trailer for a romantic drama titled I Met a Girl, marking the feature film directorial debut of Australian TV director Luke Eve. An aspiring musician named Devon embarks on an epic, cross-country journey to find the woman of his dreams - who may be all in his head. Brenton Thwaites stars in this as Devon, a musician with schizophrenia, who meets a girl who is just as impulsive and romantic as he is. She disappears by the morning but leaves a note saying "meet me in Sydney." Is she real...? He must travel all the way there to find out. The cast includes Joel Jackson, Lily Sullivan, Zahra Newman, and Anita Hegh. This looks super sappy and cliche. Not exactly the most original idea, but put some good music over this story of love, and it'll make anyone's heart beat fast.

Kate Box and Zoe Terakes on the ‘Wentworth’ set.

The time when cis-gender people could play transgender characters on screen is fast disappearing, according to Zoe Terakes.

“I’ve never seen a cis-gender person tell a transgender story 100 per cent believably,” the young actor, who identifies as non-binary, tells If.

“There is a level of authenticity in representation that comes when you have somebody who gets it, feels it in their bones and they have lived it.”

Terakes has joined the cast of season eight and nine of Fremantle/Foxtel’s Wentworth playing Rebel ‘Reb’ Keane, who is terrified after being sentenced to prison.

Reb was born female, came to feel she was trapped in a man’s body and now identifies as a female-to-trans man.

Reb’s parents send Reb to a cult-like “rehabilitation” clinic in an effort to “cure” their “daughter,” which has echoes of Joel Edgerton’s feature Boy Erased.

Sophie Hawkshaw (L) and Zoe Terakes in ‘Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)’.

Since Zoe Terakes came out, the proudly gay actor has not been offered any screen roles as straight characters – but that has not hindered the 19-year-old’s flourishing career.

There is no such discrimination in the theatre world and Zoe is currently performing in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Ensemble Theatre, directed by Iain Sinclair.

She made her stage debut as Catherine, a college student who is romantically involved with Italian immigrant Rodolpho, in the Old Fitz Theatre production of the play while she was studying for the Hsc.

Miller’s play has been a talisman for her as she appeared in the Melbourne Theatre Company production, also directed by Sinclair, earlier this year.

Terakes is gratified by the growing acceptance of Lgbtqi actors and storylines but she tells If: “In the...

Sophie Hawkshaw (L) and Zoe Terakes in ‘Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)’.

Since Zoe Terakes came out, the proudly gay actor has not been offered any screen roles as straight characters – but that has not hindered the 19-year-old’s flourishing career.

There is no such discrimination in the theatre world and Zoe is currently performing in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Ensemble Theatre, directed by Iain Sinclair.

She made her stage debut as Catherine, a college student who is romantically involved with Italian Rodolpho, in the Old Fitz Theatre production of the play while she was studying for the Hsc.

Miller’s play has been a talisman for her as she appeared in the Melbourne Theatre Company production, also directed by Sinclair, earlier this year.

Terakes is determined to overcome the attitude prevalent in sections of the screen industry that gay actors can’t be convincing as straight characters.

Marta Dusseldorp as Janet King..

The third season of Screentime.s ABC drama Janet King, starring Marta Dusseldorp, goes into production this week.

Joining the established cast of Damian Walshe-Howling, Peter Kowitz, Christopher Morris, Andrea Demetriades, Anita Hegh and Hamish Michael for the third instalment will be Don Hany, Robert Mammone, Susie Porter, Andrew Ryan, Huw Higginson, John Bach, Steve Le Marquand, Arka Das and Adam Demos.

This season, Janet will confront .a hornet.s nest of illegal gambling, organised crime and money laundering, while investigating the tragic death of a young sports star..

Written by Greg Haddrick, Felicity Packard, and Niki Aken with Alexa Wyatt as writer/script producer, the season will be directed by Peter Andrikidis, Grant Brown and Catherine Millar.

Janet King is produced by Karl Zwicky and Lisa Scott with Hilary Bonney and Marta Dusseldrop as associate producers. Screentime.s Haddrick, ABC.s Sally Riley and Kym Goldsworthy are executive producers.

Janet King season 2 begins production this week with Marta Dusseldorp reprising her lead role.

In the second series, King is seconded from the Dpp to lead a Royal Commission into a deadly upsurge in gun crime..

King is joined by conscripting solicitors Richard Stirling (Hamish Michael) and Lina Badir (Andrea Demetriades), and the ambitious Owen Mitchell (Damian Walshe-Howling) as Counsel Assisting.

With coercive powers Detective Andy Campbell (Christopher Morris) can only dream of, King and her team peel back the complex layers of intrigue underpinning the illicit trade in weapons..

Completing the cast are Peter Kowitz, Leah Purcell, Terry Serio, Philip Quast, Anita Hegh, Aaron Jeffrey, Genevieve Hegney, Nicholas Hope and Ewen Leslie.

The series is produced by Screentime, a Banijay Group company, and series produced by Karl Zwicky, produced by Lisa Scott, with Hilary Bonney and Marta Dusseldorp as associate producers, and Greg Haddrick as executive producer..

It is written by Haddrick,...

Casting is underway for The Daughter, a movie which theatre director Simon Stone is adapting from his radical re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen.s The Wild Duck.

Producers Jan Chapman and Nicole O.Donohue are collaborating with Stone, who made his screen debut directing Robyn Nevin, Richard Roxburgh and Cate Blanchett in a segment of Tim Winton.s The Turning.

Shooting is due to start in September. Screen Nsw funded development of the project. Scripted by Stone and Chris Ryan "after Ibsen," the stage production of his 1884 play is set in contemporary rural Australia.

The Belvoir production had rave reviews, typified by Fairfax Media.s Cameron Woodhead who said, .Go see this production of The Wild Duck. Theatre of such delicacy and distillation is vanishingly rare. The ensemble performance is magnificent, the writing effortlessly overheard, the design possesses a chiselled power, and the direction confirms Simon Stone as one of our...

Jessica Marais will star as transgender Les Girls performer Carlotta in a new telemovie for ABC 1. Carlotta follows the life of the transgender pioneer, who was born as Richard Byron before transforming into Carol and, on stage, Carlotta in the 1970s. Written by David Hannum, with story consultation from Carlotta, the film will be directed by Samantha Lang (My Place, The Monkey.s Mask) and will feature an acclaimed cast, including Caroline O.Connor, Alex Dimitriades, Anita Hegh, Eamon Farren and Paul Capsis. Carlotta will be produced by Riccardo Pellizzeri (Underbelly: Nz, Siege, Mda, Blue Heelers) and Lara Radulovich (Wentworth, Neighbours) with the ABC.s Carole Sklan and Christopher Gist as executive producers. Developed by Pellizzeri and Radulovich, Carlotta is being produced by their new production company Story Ark Productions. Producers Lara Radulovich and Riccardo Pellizzeri said, .This has been a passion project of ours for many years and...

If there’s nothing particularly flooring about the narrative of Glendyn Ivin’s Last Ride - based on a Mac Gudgeon screenplay, which itself was taken from Denise Young’s 2004 novel – the film finds its stirring pulse in the way it unhurriedly frames a wounded father-son relationship against the never-ending landscapes of the Australian Outback. There is something immediately powerful about observing these two souls march through such a vast territory, because it sets up such a compelling incongruity; as they are surrounded by all the vast open-space the world can offer, the tension between them builds mightily so that even when young Chook (Tom Russell) stands alone atop the immense, puddle-coated Lake Gairdner, a sense of claustrophobia still trickles in. They are freed by their surroundings, but paralyzed by their past.

In an opening scene, when we see Kev (Hugo Weaving) cut his hair and beard in the bathroom of a roadside eatery,...

Barbican, London

How times change. When Botho Strauss's play was first seen in Britain in 1983 it was greeted with boos and mass walkouts on its pre-West End tour.

Now it arrives in a crisp new Martin Crimp translation and an exciting Sydney Theatre Company production that yields a tumultuous performance from Cate Blanchett and is met with wild enthusiasm. But we're not just applauding a great performance; we've also finally caught up with Strauss's play.

It would be all too easy to describe it as a study in postwar alienation. Actually, it is about a woman who desperately wants to belong. Accordingly, Strauss sends his eager heroine, Lotte, on a contemporary odyssey, where she encounters a series of cold shoulders. Starting as an outsider on a Moroccan package tour, she oscillates between the German cities of Saarbrücken and Essen, only to be rejected by her husband, spurned by an old...

The cast includes: John Brumpton, Mick Coulhard, Rachel Francis, Anita Hegh, Adam Morgan, Levine Ngatokorua, Chrissie Page, Kelton Pell, Tom Russell, Sonya Suares, Hugo Weaving and Chris Weir.

The screenplay writer of Last Ride is Glendyn Ivin.

There are majority of directors in Australia who have started their career in short films. But there are only a few directors who achieved the level of success like Glendyn Ivin. Glendyn Ivin has been a winner of the Palme d’Or award for Cracker Bag at Cannes in the 2003.

In 2003, Glendyn Ivin’s short suburban film Cracker Bag won the Cannes Prix in the short fiction category and it was thought by many that probably it will be followed by a big budget film immediately. It is a low budget film. The scenery used is invaluable. There are some marvellous shots, awesome acting and...

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