Deep Water

###Deep Water

Noah Taylor and Yael Stone headline SBS’s new Australian drama Deep Water

The four-hour crime thriller will also star William McInnes (The Time of Our Lives, The Slap), Danielle Cormack (Wentworth, Rake, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries), Jeremy Lindsay Taylor (Gallipoli, Puberty Blues, Sea Patrol), Craig McLachlan (The Doctor Blake Mysteries), Dan Spielman (The Code, Accidental Soldier, Offspring), Ben Oxenbould (The Kettering Incident, Old School, Rake), Simon Burke (Devil’s Playground), John Brumpton (Catching Milat, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) and Victoria Haralabidou (The Code, East West 101, All Saints), Simon Elrahi (The Code), George H. Xanthis (The Principal), Renee Lim (Please Like Me, East West 101) and Julian Maroun.

From Blackfella Films, the producers of both the awarding-winning drama Redfern Now and factual program First Contact, Deep Water will be SBS’s first cross-genre, cross-platform event which will include a four-part drama series, a feature documentary and unique online web series and content.

The edge-of-your-seat drama is executive produced by SBS’s Sue Masters and produced by Blackfella Films’ Miranda Dear and Darren Dale (Redfern Now, Mabo, Ready For This) and written by Kris Wyld (East West 101) and Kym Goldsworthy (Love Child, Serangoon Road).

SBS Director of Television and Online Content, Marshall Heald said:

“SBS is proud that this important drama has attracted Australia’s finest creative professionals both in front – and behind the camera. Inspired by true events from Australia’s recent past, this must-watch drama delivers on SBS’s commitment to promote diversity and social cohesion through exploring the big events that have shaped our nation.”

In making the announcement Blackfella Films’ Miranda Dear and Darren Dale said:

“We are absolutely delighted to have the immense talents of Noah Taylor and Yael Stone joining forces with a superb supporting cast for this gripping crime thriller set in the melting pot of Australia’s most iconic beachside suburb”.

CEO of Screen Australia, Graeme Mason said:

“It’s such a thrill seeing an established Australian talent and a new Australian talent, working in tandem on this new TV series. Noah Taylor has long been an actor making Australia proud, having carved out an impressive career since his childhood and still going from strength to strength in both local and Hollywood productions. Yael Stone has been a quiet achiever, attracting acclaim for her break-out role on Orange is the New Black which Australian and international audiences alike, have embraced. It’s wonderful when Australian talent working overseas return home to star in local productions, and Noah and Yael’s participation in Deep Water is certainly going to bring new heights of star power to this already exciting project.”

Screen NSW CEO Courtney Gibson said:

“This is will be a gripping landmark drama series inspired by shocking untold crimes in Australia’s recent history; a must-watch event across multiple platforms, now with an absolutely stellar team, both on the screen and behind the camera.”

Set in contemporary Bondi, Deep Water will be directed by Shawn Seet (Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door, The Code) with Director of Photography Bruce Young (The Code, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart), production design by Felicity Abbott (Secret City, Redfern Now, Alex & Eve), costume design by Damir Peranovic (Gods of Egypt, Truth, A Place to Call Home) with hair and makeup by Dalia Fernandez (Ready for This, Redfern Now).

The drama unfolds when detectives Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone) and Nick Manning (Noah Taylor) are assigned a brutal murder case. They begin to uncover mounting evidence to suggest the killing is connected to a spate of unexplained deaths, “suicides” and disappearances throughout the 80s and 90s. Is this the result of shoddy police work, indifference, or something far more sinister? Haunted by the disappearance of her teenage brother, Tori’s fascination with the case soon turns to fixation. And when more ritualistic murders occur with the same bizarre signature, Tori and Nick will need to put their relationships, their careers and their lives on the line to finally reveal the truth.

Deep Water is a Blackfella Films’ production for SBS, and is produced with the assistance of Screen Australia and Screen NSW with DCD Rights handling international sales.

The four-part crime drama Deep Water will air on SBS in 2016.

The 4-part drama premieres next Wednesday (October 5) at 8.30pm and continues on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Deep Water – The Real Story

Feature-length documentary premieres Sunday 16 October at 8.30pm

Documentary Deep Water – The Real Story explores a spate of violence and crime which bloodied Sydney’s coastline in the 1980s and 1990s.

Disturbing gang assaults were being carried out on coastal cliffs around Sydney, and mysterious deaths officially recorded as ‘suicide’, ‘disappearance’ and ‘misadventure’.
In this stunning feature-length documentary premiering Sunday October 16 at 8.30pm on SBS, individual stories are woven together by emotional first person interviews and detailed re-enactments, piecing together the facts of these unsolved cases, decades later.
It was December 1989, and David McMahon was out for a night time jog around the cliffs in Bondi. David was attacked, dragged down three flights of stairs and managed to escape, but not before hearing one of the attackers say: ‘let’s take him up and throw him off where we threw the other dude’.

In November 1989, John Russell shared drinks with a friend before making his way towards Marks Park above Bondi Beach, a well-known gay ‘beat’. The following morning a local jogger discovered his body at the bottom of the cliffs covered in blood. The inquest into John’s death lasted seven minutes, with a conclusion of ‘death by misadventure’.
In July 1989, Wollongong newsreader Ross Warren was last seen driving along Oxford Street, Darlinghurst after a night out with friends. Two days later his car keys were found on the rocks beneath Marks Park at Tamarama. Police concluded Ross fell accidentally into the sea. His body was never recovered.

Survivors, witnesses, families of victims and many of those involved at the time including ex-police, investigative journalists, forensic pathologists and the ex-Deputy State Coroner are now candidly speaking out on the events of the past in the hope that new evidence might rise to the surface.

Deep Water – The Real Story raises the complex question of where the responsibility lies for these crimes - the perpetrators, the police, or a wider society in the grips of homophobia, misinformation and fear?

Deep Water – The Real Story is a Blackfella Films (First Contact, Redfern Now, First Australians) production, directed by Amanda Blue (Prescott: The Class System and Me, Young Black Farmers, After The Wave) for SBS, with major production investment from Screen Australia.

Binge watched this mini-series this weekend. Well made series. Top quality drama.

2 Likes