Adaptations to share Screen Australia funding

Two book adaptations are among 47 projects to share $1.2 million of story development funding from Screen Australia.

Funding will go towards adaptations of Jessie Tu’s novel A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing (A&U) and Mimi Kwa’s memoir House of Kwa (ABC Books), which will be filmed as drama series under the same titles.

A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing will be adapted by Tu into a six-part drama series about Jena, a Taiwanese-Australian woman and former child prodigy who is re-entering the privileged world of classical musicianship after a lengthy period out of the spotlight. In doing so, Jena must grapple with understanding her identity and power, which has been tied to this world for as long as she can remember, and also those that put her in it. Thea Goes to Town producer Morgan Hind will be producing the series and Happy Feet co-writer John Collee is attached as script editor.

House of Kwa will be adapted into an eight-part drama about the true story of the Kwa family, spanning four generations from 19th-century China to wartime Hong Kong and modern Western Australia. When Kwa, a journalist, is sued by her father over his beloved sister’s will, she faces a battle with the ghosts and misdeeds of her family’s dynastic past—exposing the cultural legacies that brought them head-to-head in an Australian courtroom. The memoir will be adapted for the screen by Bad Behaviour director Corrie Chen, alongside collaborators Penelope Chai, Niki Aken, Liselle Mei and Kim Ho. The drama series will be produced by Jude Troy and Richard Finlayson, who are also executive producing alongside Chen and Elizabeth Bradley.

Read about the other projects to share the Screen Australia funding here.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions