ACTF News

The Australian Children’s Television Foundation invested or committed nearly $10 million in production funding during the 2022-23 financial year, as well as investing almost $600,000 in the development of 20 new projects.

$3,792,096 was spent on production investment, with a further $6,109,916 committed to projects at financing stage.

Five ACTF supported programs premiered during the year – Barrumbi Kids, Crazy Fun Park, Kangaroo Beach Series 2, 100% Wolf Series 2 and The PM’s Daughter Series 2 – and three ACTF supported programs went into production – Eddie’s Li’l Homies, Space Nova Series 2 and Little J & Big Cuz Series 4.

A further five ACTF supported programs were financed during the year, with production to commence in the 2023-24 financial year: Windcatcher, Tales from Outer Suburbia, Whale Shark Jack, Runt and Kangaroo Beach Series 3.

Projects to receive production funding in the 22-23 financial year have been or are being filmed right across the country, from Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef to remote communities in the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land, extreme environments deep in the Queensland wilderness, a purpose-built theme park in the suburbs of Melbourne and even our national Parliament House.

The ACTF invested in the development of 20 projects, with a total spend of $596,205. Projects to receive funding were a mix of live-action and animation and included four films.

Programs supported by the ACTF have been extremely popular overseas, with our international distribution team selling content to 28 different territories, including the UK, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Germany and Latin America.

Four ACTF supported programs won major awards. Crazy Fun Park won the 2023 Logie for Most Outstanding Children’s Program, Barrumbi Kids won Children’s Production of the Year at the 2023 Screen Producers Australia (SPA) Awards, More Than This won two prizes at the 2022 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, and Space Nova won an award at the same event.

The ACTF Learning team released six new education resources, supporting teachers to use recently released shows such as More Than This, Red Dirt Riders, MaveriX and The Deep in the classroom, and a NAIDOC themed digital resource supported teachers to explore First Nations content with their students.

Webinars for students and teachers held through the year lifted the bonnet on the production process with special guests discussing the script writing process, creature and character design and visual effects, while in person events were held with students and teachers alongside partners including the Australian National Maritime Museum (Sydney), the DreamBIG Festival (Adelaide) and ACMI (Melbourne).

ACTF Board Chair Helen Silver said: “Most of us take quality Australian children’s screen content for granted. If we didn’t grow up with it ourselves, our children certainly did, and we know just how important it is to have Australian stories for children to watch.

“This report highlights the remarkable range of children’s content we are supporting in development and production and shares our achievements in bringing children’s content to the world through our international distribution arm, and into classrooms via the work of our education team. We have a remarkable story to tell across these pages.”

You can access the full report here.