Australia was once known for producing some pretty wild and innovative genre film. Bolstered by a pretty free local funding scheme, Aussie directors pumped out a whole stack of action, horror and sci-fi movies. We developed a bit of a rep for pushing boundaries. Quentin Tarantino cites many local productions as a huge influence on his own grindhouse schlock cinema.
A number of reasons – quite well told in the extremely fun doco ‘Not Quite Hollywood’, if you’ve got the time – led to Australia’s film industry shifting, and our rep for genre film faltering somewhat. That’s changing, to a certain extent: you only need to consider the huge success of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’.
Now we’ve got ‘Cleverman’. The Indigenous Australian-led sci-fi series, which is set in a dystopian Australia in which the government relentlessly pursues and oppresses an ancient race of beings called ‘Hairymen’, is bringing Aussie genre TV back into the spotlight, and the world is noticing.
It has a simultaneous American release via SundanceTV, and it’s getting attention from publications who are a) baffled by a new Australian production on their screens, and b) probably encountering Indigenous Australian culture, as represented by Indigenous actors directors, for the first time.
From American pop culture site Uproxx:
Thankfully, creator Ryan Griffen’s gritty urban Australian epic — which premieres tonight on SundanceTV — has a lot to set it apart. When the showrunner set out to create the six-part series that follows a group of gifted beings struggling to survive amongst a human species that fears them, he did so with one goal in mind: to give his young son, a comic book junkie like his dad, an idol who looked like him. Thus was born Cleverman, the Aboriginal superhero show we never even knew we needed.
Vulture spoke to English actor Iain Glenn about his role in the series:
And on his new show, the Australian import Cleverman (premiering June 1 on Sundance), he’s Jarrod Slade, a Richard Branson-like billionaire businessman and media mogul with a sideline in supernatural medical situations. Both live in worlds grounded in reality, but with magical elements. The difference is that Cleverman, billed as the “first indigenous Australian superhero series,” takes place in the near future.
It’s also had write-ups in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among others.
Basically, it’s great that the local industry is attracting interest for trying something new and daring, and it’s even better that the work of Indigenous actors and filmmakers are getting the attention they deserve.
It premieres on ABC tonight. Gee yourself up with the *American* trailer:
Photo: Cleverman.
