Screen Australia and SBS have selected three short-form series from the 2019 Digital Originals initiative - 'A Beginner’s Guide to Grief', 'Freewheelers' and 'Iggy & Ace 5eva' - to further develop, with the intention of at least one going into production for SBS On Demand.
'A Beginner's Guide to Grief' is the latest project to be greenlit via SBS and Screen Australia's Digital Originals initiative, with an additional six projects selected for further development.
New seasons of TikTok series 'The Formal' and YouTube's Australia’s 'Best Street Racer' are among the six projects to share in more than $920,000 from Screen Australia's Online Fund.
SBS will bring more new voices to the forefront in its upcoming drama slate, which includes four short-form productions from its Digital Originals initiative, as well as the upcoming series 'Safe Home', from producer Imogen Banks.
For writer and director Stef Smith, creating short-form project 'It's Fine, I'm Fine' - about to premiere at Canneseries - was an attempt to get out of what she calls the "credit desert".
That is, it was a bid, for both herself and her fellow collaborators, to obtain the kind of credit that could see them escape the sticky "emerging" label.
In 'A Beginner's Guide to Grief', Anna Lindner is Harriet ‘Harry’ Wylde, who is navigating the loss of her two terminally ill parents in the one week, and the unpredictable fun park of grief.
Actress Anna Lindner hadn't necessarily planned to also become a screenwriter, yet felt she had "no option" but to turn her own painful and profound experiences with caring and loss into a dark comedy, 'A Beginner's Guide to Grief'.
'It’s Fine, I’m Fine' follows a suburban Australian psychologist and the ups and downs of her patients as they explore love, loss, anxiety, obsession, and the uncertain future ahead.