New Holland Pictures selected for SPARK

Queensland’s New Holland Pictures is one of eight teams chosen to participate in this year’s SPARK Program, with their feature film script Strangerland.

Written by Fiona Seres (Fireflies, Love my Way) and to be directed by Kim Farrant (Sammy Blue, Naked), Strangerland is a powerful story of a family that melts down after their two children disappear in the desert.

Director Kim Farrant and writer Fiona Seres

SPARK is an intensive script development program run by AFC and AFTRS.  The creative teams will work with heavy weight Australian and international advisors in a residential workshop at Noosa later this month. SPARK then supports the next draft and provides   marketing and financing advice.

“Fiona has written a beautiful first draft script and it will only get better through the SPARK process,” said producer Cathy Overett. “And the marketing assistance the program gives us at the end will be just as important as the script development process.”

Strangerland is set on the edge of a desert town. Fiona and New Holland Pictures’ researcher, Erin Brady, will be spending time in Quilpie before the residential workshop, exploring the desert environment that is very much part of the story.  Winton is also being considered as a possible location.