Screen Australia’s latest documentary production funding round is worth somewhere under $17m, of which it is committing $4.4m on sixteen projects. Seven of these use the non-broadcast door, which the agency has insisted on defending and incorporates the old Signature Fund for independent projects.
Motorkite Dreaming, for instance, has been in development and production for several years at the hands of John Cherry and Charlie Hill-Smith, and attracted support from traditional cinema veteran Simon Nasht and transmedia/branding/feature doc expert Marcus Gillezeau. As he explained, “Redbull have come on board for the feature film and the spinoff series for global distribution. I like to think of it as a sign of the future because we have a global presale and a domestic deal. And that arrangement is in every sense elegant, and hopefully there will be more like that in the future. That is what a deal looks like with any of the global video-on-demand channels.’ Local rights are held by Simon Nasht’s Screen Impact, which licensed the spinoff to NITV.
