Mano Nera and Wonderland picked up

New Holland Pictures has optioned another two local scripts by Brisbane writers Matthew Ryan and Adam Grossetti - both based on succesful plays.

A Christmas comedy about fake snow, fairy lights and the great Australian dream, Matthew Ryan's Wonderland revolves around suburban Dicken's Road. Old-fashioned battler Bob Jones has lost his job and his son Foster is sick of paying the bills.  His neighbour Eugene just bought a mail-order bride  and is now in debt with the Russian mafia. And the snobs across the road are trying to buy a trendy new beachfront apartment. When they discover the grand prize in the Christmas Lights Competition can solve their respective money problems, the neighbourhood goes to war.

Set in the cane growing community of Ingham, in Far North Queensland, in the 1930s, Adam Grossetti's Mano Nera begins with Italian Vincenzo D’Palmi’s dream of a better life in Australia. As his ideals crumble, he resorts to the mafia-like methods of his homeland to make his fortune and embarks on a reign of murder, bombings, kidnapping, arson, poisoning and prostitution. When . But with the rise of the Fascists in Italy, and the outbreak of World War Two, the local Italian population and the wider local community soon resists and Vinnie’s world, and life, is shattered.

Summer Wonderland has just finished a successful season at La Boite Theatre, whilst Mano Nera enjoyed a triumphant season with the Queensland Theatre Company and won the Premier's Drama Award in 2005.