A young girl has to contend with adolescence and the supernatural in a new 13 part series.
Kyliric Mastella, Mairehau Grace and Tjiirdm McGuire. Photos supplied by Magpie Pictures, Production Stills by Julian Panetta.
Grace Beside Me, the first Indigenous children’s television series to be produced in Queensland, will be officially launched in Beaudesert, the shooting location, today, February 7, before its world premiere on NITV on February 16.
Based on the award-winning novel by Eumundi writer Sue McPherson, the 13 part series tells the story of Fuzzy Mac (Kyliric Masella), an Indigenous girl who just wants to be an ordinary teenager but has to contend with the world of ghosts, ancestors and Indigenous mystic tradition. Mairehau Grace and Tjiirdm McGuire co-star Fuzzy’s friends Tui and Yar, along with Tessa Rose and Charles Passi as her grandparents.
“Grace Beside Me breaks a lot of new ground” say producers Lois Randall and Dena Curtis. “It’s the first live-action drama commission for NITV and first co-commission between NITV and ABC, with Disney Channel also licensing the series in Australia and New Zealand, and Canada’s 9 Story Media Group picking up the series as their first Australian title for rest of world distribution. Screen Australia and Screen Queensland were also major investors.”
The series has also been announced as a finalist in the 28th Prix Jeunesse International 2018.
Taking place in Munich from May 25 – 30, the festival celebrates outstanding children’s television, with this year’s theme being “strong stories for strong children: resilience and story telling”.
One of four Australian series to make the grade, Grace Beside Me is in the 7 – 10 Years Fiction category, which will be judged by a German children’s jury consisting of 600 children as well as a professional jury.