14 12 2017 - Media release Create NSW, ABC Arts and Screen Australia announce Double Happiness
Double Happiness / Photo credit Olivia Martin-McGuire
Create NSW and ABC Arts have announced that Double Happiness, a fresh look at relations between Australia and China through the prism of love and marriage, is the second film to be commissioned through the Documentary Feature Fund joint initiative, with additional major production funding from Screen Australia.
Double Happiness will take viewers on a billion-dollar ride of fantasy, aspiration, hope and reconciliation, exploring contemporary China and its relationship with Australia from the fascinating aspect of the burgeoning pre-wedding photography industry. The film is the directorial debut of celebrated photographer Olivia Martin-McGuire with Media Stockade's Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton confirmed as producers.
Olivia Martin-McGuire is an Australian documentary photographer based in Shanghai. She has exhibited her work widely, shoots for various international publications and companies and is part of the popular Instagram group of documentary photo and video storytellers called the Eyes On China Project. She has directed two short films in her career, Under the Swell and It's that time of the Month Again, which screened as part of the Loud Televised Short Film Festival on ABC and at international festivals.
With a focus on producing social-impact factual storytelling, Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton's previous films include I Am A Girl, which received four AACTA nominations and rated highly on SBS Television, and documentary film The Surgery Ship, which also screened on SBS and was later developed into an eight-part series for National Geographic. The Opposition premiered at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival and internationally at the influential HotDocs Festival in Canada.
The Create NSW and ABC Arts Documentary Feature Fund is a three-year joint initiative to fund one new feature length arts documentary per year. Create NSW contributes $100,000 to each production with the ABC allocating a $150,000 license fee.
Each film funded through this initiative receives a world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival prior to screening on ABC. The first year's documentary The Go-Betweens: Right Here from director Kriv Stenders premiered at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival and was a sell-out success.
Create NSW CEO Michael Brealey said, The pitch from Olivia and her producers was irresistible. They have taken a highly creative approach to exploring this distinct cultural phenomenon in a way that takes the viewer deeply into Chinese society and delves into the country's evolving relationship with Australia. We are very excited to see Olivia translate her exceptional photographic eye into a documentary feature format.
ABC Arts Acting Head, Linda Brusasco said, ABC Arts is thrilled to once again be partnering with Create NSW for this exciting initiative. Olivia's trailer was visually arresting and as soon as we saw it - and heard her pitch - we knew we wanted to see more. Double Happiness promises to be a rich ride for our audience and a unique way of looking at Australia's cultural place within the wider region.
This is the second feature documentary title Screen Australia has supported through the Create NSW and ABC Arts initiative.
Double Happiness is a real career opportunity for first-time feature director Olivia Martin-McGuire, and the producers Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Heatherton are to be commended for supporting another early career female filmmaker, said Liz Stevens, Senior Manager of Documentary at Screen Australia. This project promises to be a visual feast as it explores the beauty, opulence and theatricality of Chinese wedding photography.
Sydney Film Festival CEO Leigh Small added, Sydney Film Festival congratulates director Olivia Martin-McGuire and producers Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton (SFF 2017 alumni with The Opposition) as the second recipients of the Create NSW and ABC Arts documentary commission. The Festival is proud to premiere Double Happiness in June 2018 and expect it to receive the same popular and critical enthusiasm as did inaugural recipient Kriv Stenders' The Go-Betweens: Right Here.
Media enquiries Kristoff Clark | Create NSW
61 2 8289 6498 | kristoff.clark@create.nsw.gov.au
Media enquiries Jane Alexander | Senior Publicist
61 2 8113 5883 | 61 400 940 682 | jane.alexander@screenaustralia.gov.au
Clio Anne Ellis | Publicist & Events
61 2 8113 1091 | 61 405 492 745 | clio.ellis@screenaustralia.gov.au
All other general/non-media enquiries Sydney 61 2 8113 5800 | Melbourne 61 3 8682 1900 | info@screenaustralia.gov.au
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
14 12 2017 - Media release Create NSW, ABC Arts and Screen Australia announce Double Happiness 
