LIFE’S A BEACH

Series 1. The East Coast of Australia.

13x30 delicious culinary journeys

Starring International TV Chef and star of Surfing the Menu, Ben O’Donoghue.

In this new series, Ben will check out the unique food regions of Australia. He’ll see amazing sights, meet wonderful locals, source fresh produce, and surprise the viewers at home with what he can create on a barbie on the most wonderful beaches in the world.

CURTIS OVERBOARD

Series 1 - The Islands of Australia

8 x 30 TV series - People + Travel + Food + Adventure + Fun

Starring International TV Personality and Chef Curtis Stone

Set sail with Curtis Stone to discover wonderful characters + fantastic cuisines + experience exhilarating adventures on the largely unknown and spectacularly colourful ‘Islands of Australia’.

A huge star in the USA, and most recently voted one of the sexiest men in America in People Magazine alongside George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Curtis has pulling power. And with his US show ‘Take home chef’ is now taking on the world, Curtis is a bankable presenter and star. Curtis is also a regular guest on Oprah, Ellen, Martha, Fox Mornings, NBCs Today Show, Celebrity Apprentice, Biggest Loser and ‘E’ Network’s Entertainment Tonight.

Australia is the world’s single largest Island. But its own islands are unique & remarkable. Many featuring Polynesian, Asian, Indigenous as well as European influences. All stunning platforms for travel, adventure and delicious cuisines.

In each location Curtis hooks-up with a wooden sailing boat and skipper. The skipper becomes his new best friend. A gregarious local character who’ll show him what life’s really about. The kind of person who is as entertaining as he or she is knowledgeable about the local area. Especially about the places that only locals know. Places and people never seen before on television.

SICILIAN ECHOES

An 8-part TV Series searching out Sicilian echoes that resonate throughout the world today. And the echoes of the countries that influenced Sicilian culture and cuisine.

Sicilians are not Italians. Sicily has a unique culture with its own language born out of its location at the crossroads and heart of invading, trading and colonizing cultures like the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, Carthangenians, Phoenicians, Swabians and Agenvins. Each interweaving their cultures & cuisines. Creating a multi-culture that is unique, vibrant, delicious and often misunderstood.

Sicilian Echoes encompasses food, culture, history and architecture. Yet some of the traditions that made Sicily great and unique are slowly being diluted and lost. Yet, interestingly, they survive within the hearts and lifestyle of many who left Sicily and live elsewhere, like here in Australia and right throughout the world.

Filmed in Australia, the UK, USA and Sicily, Sydney-based internationally selling food and travel author Manuela Darling-Gansser & Sicilian master chef Vincenzo Clemente take us on a journey through the past, present and future of Sicilian culture, attitudes, lifestyles and cusines. In fact, Australia has become something of a time-capsule for many of the cultures that now call Australia home. Could it be the delicious recipe for how multicultural Australia will continue to evolve?

OUR MAN ALBERT

In this film we discover how a Jewish boy from Melbourne became one of London's great music hall stars in the early 1900s, his talent having first been 'discovered' on Western Australia's goldfields.

Albert Whealn was truly the first "Boy from Oz" who made it internationally. This will be a dramatised documentary directed by Roger Hodgman, one of Australia's leading theatre, and television directors.

WHIPPED

This films takes us to India's exotic Bollywood in the 1930s, where Perth-born Mary Evans is rapidly becoming a superstar as 'Fearless Nadia'.

Collectively, these documentary films introduce audiences to three extraordinary performers who were to enrich the popular culture of their adoptive lands. See the synopsis attached.

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DOWN-TO-EARTH

A portrait of the life, work & wild world of down-to-earth internationally-renowned Australian Ceramic Artist Pippin Drysdale.

A female Falstaff, larger than life, colourful and generous of spirit. She paints her own picture of a naughty daughter of a wealthy family. But her silver spoon upbringing has never stopped her from being a genuine down-to-earth character in everything she does: in her love-life, in her love of life, in her social-life, in her internationally acclaimed work, and in herself.

THE GARDEN DIVA

With today s explosion in inner-city living, town houses and apartments have become the lifestyle choice of many upwardly mobile thirty-somethings who have little or no gardening experience. They want instant courtyard, terrace or balcony gardens that are low maintenance and water wise, but also vibrant, cool, inviting, stylish, and ideal for entertaining.

They need the expertise and pizzazz of Neil Hansen.

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KONICHIWA AUSTRALIA

The Japanese Shakuhachi bamboo flute and the Australian Didgeridoo. Both played for centuries. Both integral to their culture s identity, soul and meaning.

In this journey of discovery an Australian indigenous Didgeridoo maker and international musician visits a Shakuhachi master in Japan to learn the secrets of its making and playing the Shakuhachi in the bamboo groves beneath Mt Fuji. The Japanese master then accompanies the didgeridoo maker to Australia s red-earthed Australian outback to learn the secrets of making and playing the didgeridoo. While seeking to discover the differences between these two dramatically different cultures, more similarities than differences are revealed.

DESIGNS ON ITALY

A design series presented by Dott.ssa Jeanne-Marie Cilento Giornalista + Disegno + Architetto

As an Architect, Designer and Design Journalist, Australian-born Jeanne-Marie Cilento lives in the epicentre of European Design culture - Rome. Through her contacts with Italian-based global designers of everything from cars to couture, from furniture to food, she will take us on a journey to understand the philosophies and processes behind the designs that continually reshape our world. Plus she’ll also chart the course of Aussie designers who are beginning to make an impact on the world scene. Jeanne-Marie s relaxed, Australian style and international perspective will be filled with both insight and entertainment.

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TRUFFLES DOWN-UNDER

Presented by Elisabeth Luard and
Alain FabrËgues
4x30 farm, food + eco series

Remember the new-world wine revolution that transformed Australia? It transformed the way the world viewed Australia too? That next food revolution to take on the world could well be truffles. In the South West of Australia they re now successfully farming Truffles. Truffles have captured the imagination of lovers of food, cooks and chefs right around the world. Manjimup is three hours drive south-east of Perth. On one property alone there is a plantation of more than 65,000 truffle oak and hazelnut trees planted and producing. World-renowned English writer and presenter Elisabeth Luard teams with French Chef extraordinaire Alain FabrËgues to discover the magic of truffles, fresh regional produce and genuine passionate characters in the most eco diverse region in the world.

BRIDAL TRAIN

Australian stories of romance, marriage and migration under fire. Where the love a man outweighed the love of a country. Bridal Train is a significant and little known-part of Australian history, it affected the lives of tens of thousands, and parallels the consolidation of the political, military and social relationship between Australia and USA we experience today. It may even have influenced it. Of the original 12,000 brides, today there are less than 50 war brides alive. Sadly their stories, and part of the story of Australia, is dying with them.