Four years ago Australian fashion photographer and music video director David Murrell was told he had just months to live after being diagnosed with a highly aggressive brain tumour.
Today Murrell is cancer-free, thanks to a revolutionary form of treatment devised by a team in Norway which includes his father, a stem cell biologist.
That remarkable survival saga was chronicled in the ABC’s Australian Story last year and has since been spun-off into a six-part series, Davie Wants to Live.
SBS International facilitated the production by providing a distribution guarantee and negotiating a pre-sale with National Geographic’s People Channel in Australia and New Zealand.
It’s the first time SBS International had boarded a project that was not commissioned by SBS and it won’t be the last.
At MipTV in Cannes Lara von Ahlefeldt, head of program sales at SBS International, is looking for international partners for further coproductions that she believes will resonate with viewers in Australia and globally.
Davie Wants to Live features Murrell’s video diaries over three years, starting from when the cancer was diagnosed while he was in Jakarta being treated for dengue fever in 2011, aged 35.
Subsequently a tumour the size of an orange was removed from his brain at the RPA Hospital in Sydney.
His father, Dr Wayne Murrell, is part of a team at Oslo University Hospital working on an experimental vaccine for that kind of tumour. Dr Murrell discussed the case with his boss, who agreed to treat David.
There is no trace of the tumour and David Murrell goes to Norway every couple of months to be vaccinated.
The series is in post and will be delivered to Nat Geo People in June for telecast later this year.