McLeod's Daughters (film)

McLeod's Daughters
Title Card
Directed by	Michael Offer
Produced by	Andrew Blaxland Posie Graeme-Evans Kris Nobel Perry Stapleton
Written by	Posie Graeme-Evans Caroline Stanton Ro Hume
Starring	Jack Thompson Kym Wilson Tammy MacIntosh
Music by	Guy Gross
Edited by	Edward McQueen-Mason
Distributed by	Millennium Pictures Pty Limited
Release dates	11 May 1996
Running time	94 mins
Country	Australia
Language	English

McLeod's Daughters is a 1996 Australian television film, it aired on the Nine Network on 11 May 1996, which was Mother's Day. At the time it was the highest rated telemovie and still remains the highest rated telemovie of all time in Australia. The movie was the pilot for the later TV series McLeod's Daughters.

Synopsis

Following the death of her mother, Tess Silverman travels to Drover's Run, the farm where she spent the first few years of her life. Drover's is a rural cattle property in South Australia, to reconnect with her only remaining family, her father Jack and her sister Claire, whom she has not seen in 20 years, since her mother left Jack and moved to the city, and taking Tess with her.

Tess arrives in a complex situation and finds herself meeting an adoring father but a hostile sister whom she no longer knows and who resents her sudden arrival and even quicker ability to win over Jack, something she herself has never been able to accomplish.

Tess is content with making her visit a short one and continue on to Venice to move on with her life but the sudden death of their father forces Tess and Claire to overcome their differences and the many obstacles before them to realise their father's dream of running Drover's Run together.^[1][2]

History and Production

Creator and Executive Producer Posie Graeme-Evans had the idea for the creating the show as far back as 1992. She was reading a magazine and saw a picture of a group of Australian cowgirls leaning over a farm gate, with big hats and big white grins. Evans immediately thought of a group of women running a cattle station.

The movie went into production in 1995 and was shot over 95-96 in Adelaide. Evans needed to find a location that was in reach of a major city, and it was hard to do outside of Sydney and Melbourne, she looked at doing it in Queensland but she didn't know Queensland well and she knew South Australia. She eventually located a government farm which was empty, so the production was moved in and it was treated as a backlot. The movie aired on the Nine Network on Mother's Day 1996 and it became the highest rated telemovie of all time in Australia. After the success of the movie, Nine decided not to pick it up for a series as they thought a female driven drama would not appeal to audiences. The property went up for sale and Evans tried to find a way to buy the property and Nine later decided to buy it. They tried to get Nine to pick up a series, but they only agreed to give them three more telemovies, the crew didn't accept, but they were later picked up for a season of 13 episodes, but the first season managed to get 22 episodes. The first season was shot in 2000-2001, and began airing in August 2001, five years after the movie.

Cast

Episodes

Awards

in 1997 cinematographer David Foreman won the Award of Distinction award for the best Telefeatures, TV Drama & Mini Series by the Australian Cinematographers Society.^[3]

DVD Releases

The Region 1 DVD.

The first ever release was included in the season one boxset in Australia. It was also included in the U.S. season one boxset, released by Koch Entertainment (now E1 Entertainment). On 8 December 2009, E1 Entertainment released the movie separate on region 1 with extras including: the first two episodes of season one.^[4] Also released on Region 2 in Germany under the title McLeod's Töchter.

See also

• McLeod's Daughters – TV series

References

External links

• McLeod's Daughters at the internet movie database