Samantha Strauss.
See-Saw Films is gearing up to produce The End, a multi-generational TV drama which centres on people who are trying to figure out how to die with dignity.
Samantha Strauss created and wrote the 10 x 30’ series which will be filmed on the Gold Coast and will mark the TV directing debut of Jessica M. Thompson.
The project has not been announced but casting has begun and IF understands Carol Hughes and Louise Smith will produce for Foxtel, with Emile Sherman and Rachel Gardner as EPs.
Among the protagonists are teenagers Jasper, who is gay, and Oberon, who was christened Titania and changed his name and gender identity when he turned 13.
The show fits Foxtel’s remit to commission original Australian dramas that are noisy and create social conversations.
Strauss co-created the hit teen drama Dance Academy with Werner Film Productions’ Joanna Werner and wrote Jeffrey Walker’s Dance Academy: The Movie.
Her writing credits include the FremantleMedia Australia telemovie Mary: The Making of a Princess and episodes of Playmaker Media’s The Wrong Girl and See-Saw Films’ The New Legends of Monkey.
The US-based Aussie Thompson made her feature directing debut with The Light of the Moon, which had its world premiere at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in 2017, where it won the audience award for best narrative feature and was acquired by Amazon Video Direct.
Starring Stephanie Beatriz as Bonnie, an architect who is sexually assaulted while walking home from an evening out with friends in Brooklyn, the drama had its Australian premiere in April at For Film’s Sake, the national flagship festival for women formerly known as the WOW Film Festival.
Thompson won the festival’s inaugural Samantha Rebillet award for a first feature, which honours the legacy of the filmmaker who died in late 2017.