Hunter Page-Lochard in Cleverman.
Screen Australia and Goalpost Pictures' Cleverman will premiere at the upcoming Berlinale – the same berth given to the likes of Better Call Saul and Bloodline at last year's festival.
The show will be presented as part of the Berlinale Special Series at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, alongside new shows from heavyweights such as Susanne Bier and Nick Hornby.
President of original programming and development for AMC and SundanceTV, Joel Stillerman, said: “We're extremely proud that Cleverman has been selected for a special series screening at Berlinale, and are excited to welcome it to SundanceTV later this year. Cleverman is a wonderfully original piece of indigenous storytelling that will appeal to a very broad audience, and has a lot to say about the world we live in.”
The six-part series features Iain Glen (Game of Thrones), Golden Globe® nominee Frances O'Connor (The Missing), Deborah Mailman (The Sapphires), Hunter Page-Lochard (The Sapphires, Spear), Rob Collins (The Lion King) and Stef Dawson (The Hunger Games).
Cleverman is produced by Goalpost Pictures Australia and New Zealand's Pukeko Pictures for ABC TV Australia in co-production with SundanceTV and Red Arrow International, with the assistance of Screen Australia, Screen NSW and the New Zealand Screen Production Grant.
Weta Workshop and Bangarra Dance Theatre have joined forces on the creature design, while Park Road Post is providing picture, visual effects and sound post production services.
The Wayne Blair and Leah Purcell-directed show will also screen as part of the “Drama Series Days” (15 – 16 February 2016), a joint initiative for TV content by the European Film Market, Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents.
"Everyone at Red Arrow is thrilled that this bold and ambitious project, which is very timely and relevant in its themes, is getting the international attention it deserves", said Managing Director of Red Arrow International Henrik Pabst.
"Cleverman has been an exciting journey from the very beginning, and we are delighted to work alongside such great partners as SundanceTV, ABC TV Australia, Goalpost Pictures and Pukeko Pictures.'
The show's producer, Goalpost's Rosemary Blight, said: “It's a great honour to be chosen to screen at the Berlinale Special Series. We are very proud of this series and it is thrilling to be sharing it with the rest of the world.'
Set in the near future, Cleverman sees a group of non-humans battling for survival in a world where humans feel increasingly inferior to them, and want to silence, exploit and kill them. Central to the drama is the story of two estranged Indigenous brothers who are forced together to fight for their own survival.