Screen Australia has announced 35 films, 29 feature documentaries, 14 TV shows, 27 TV documentaries, 10 kids’ shows, 12 online series and 10 online documentaries in various stages of production or release for this year, per an announcement on Tuesday, January 21.
2020 cinema releases have already begun with True History of the Kelly Gang and Go! (to be released as Go Karts outside of Australia on Netflix), with confirmed release dates for H is for Happiness (6 Feb), Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (27 Feb), The Wishmas Tree (27 Feb), Undertow (27 Feb), Never Too Late (23 Apr), I Am Woman (21 May), The Dry (27 Aug), and Penguin Bloom (1 Jan 2021). Indigenous anthology Cook 2020 will also screen. Gender Matters developed feature Relic will have its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival and H is for Happiness will have its international premiere at Berlinale.
The Gloaming (Stan) began the 2020 television debuts, to be followed later in the year by Stateless (ABC, 1 March), RFDS (Seven), Halifax Retribution (Nine), The Secrets She Keeps (10), Hungry Ghosts (SBS), New Gold Mountain (SBS), First Day (ABC), Fallout (ABC) and Fresh Blood comedy graduate Why Are You Like This? (ABC/Netflix). Stateless and Mystery Road series 2 will both premiere at Berlinale. Returning series include Little J & Big Cuz (NITV), Bluey (ABC), How to Stay Married (Ten), The Heights (ABC) and Bloom (Stan).
Online content due for release includes the LGBTQI+ drama Cloudy River, horror anthology Deadhouse Dark and Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Dev Patel’s animated virtual reality short Roborovski.
2020 documentary releases began with SBS’s Marry Me, Marry My Family, with forthcoming titles including feature Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra, Scott Pape’s Money School (Foxtel), Revelation with Sarah Ferguson (ABC), Warwick Thornton’s The Beach (NITV), Who Gets to Stay in Australia? (SBS), Dark Emu (ABC), and Shaun Micallef’s On The Sauce (ABC). Australia in Colour and Every Family Has a Secret will both return to SBS.