On the Slate

NATURAL HISTORY

Call of the wild

Australia is famous for its remoteness and its rugged beauty. But like so many places, its beauty is threatened by civilization; even Tasmania, the island-state across the Bass Strait from mainland Australia, is not immune. Wildness is a 55-minute documentary from Melbourne-based prodco Big & Little Films that examines the legacy of two of Australia's best-known wilderness photographers, Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, artists who used their talents to raise awareness of the fragility of Australia's wild places, Tasmania in particular.

Truchanas and Dombrovskis leveraged public opinion to the cause of conservation from the 1950s to the 1980s, when the Hydro Electric Commission was clear-cutting Tasmania's forest. They pursued their passions with an admirable focus right to the end - both men died on photo expeditions. Truchanas drowned in a boating accident in 1972; Dombrovskis died of a heart attack in 1996.

Central to the story are the photographers' widows, Melva Truchanas and Liz Dombrovskis. They have picked up the torch of the cause to protect the natural beauty of Tasmania.

Wildness is being coproduced with Film Victoria, Screen Tasmania, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Film Australia. Production of the AUS$400,000 (US$220,000) doc wraps in March 2003. The ABC will air the film later in the year.

CRIME

Murder most foul

Aidan Minter was on his way to a business meeting in London, U.K., when he noticed an unusual object floating in the river Thames. As Minter stared at the form bobbing in the murky water, he suddenly noticed it was wearing orange shorts and had a navel. What Minter discovered that day in November 2001 was the headless, limbless body of a boy no older than six.

Adam's Story , a 60-minute one-off by U.K. prodco 3BM Television, recounts the New Scotland Yard investigation into the boy's grisly death ("Adam" is the name police assigned the corpse).

The condition of Adam's body meant that detectives could determine little from an autopsy - he had black skin, was circumcised and was probably about 1.2 meters tall at full height. The police at first presumed they were dealing with a random serial killer. But, when no reports emerged for a missing boy fitting Adam's description, the investigators began to suspect the child's murderer was someone close to him.

Then, an interview with a professor of anthropology at Bath University turned their investigation upside down. Adam, the professor said, was quite possibly the victim of a harvester of body parts. Adam's limbs might have been used in muti , a form of witchcraft practiced in southern Africa - similar to the practice of voodoo in Haiti - in which limbs and organs are used to create potions, he said. To their dismay, the police learned that child sacrifice was happening on their own shores.

U.K. pubcaster Channel 4 will air Adam's Story , which carries a budget in the range of £150,000 to £200,000 (US$235,000 to $314,000), in January. C4 International, the broadcaster's commercial arm, will distribute.

ADVENTURE

Kawabunga, dude

It may sound like a cliché, but too many of us rush to fulfill the obligations of our lives and forget to take a moment to look at the world we inhabit. By examining the lives of over a dozen athletes who compete in the outdoors, in particular surfers and snowboarders, Natural Selection: Of Land and Sea (w/t), a 100-minute one-off by Anchorage, U.S.-based Stewart Productions, takes that moment of reflection for viewers. Budgeted at approximately US$155,000 and coproduced with fellow Alaskan prodco Connections Film & Video, Natural Selection explores the everyday experience of those who find a sense of freedom and identity by popping through chest-deep snow and slicing down a tumbling wall of water. More than just an escapist travelog, the film explores how the great outdoors is both the office and the home for these (generally) amateur athletes.

Environmental concerns are discussed, such as the human pressures on the delicate islands in the Hawaiian chain and the effects of oil extraction in Alaska. Esthetically, the doc takes a warts-and-all approach, showing the boarders' spills and wipeouts as well as their more graceful moments of physical prowess.

Natural Selection was shot throughout North America and in the U.K. and Japan. Production wraps in the first quarter of 2003. At press time, Stewart Productions was still looking for a distributor.

Two tires on the open road

Revolution on Wheels is an upcoming one-hour special from Ojai, U.S.-based production company Thomas Horton and Associates that revolves around the history of motorcycles, how motorcycles have changed society, and the ever-evolving designs of motorcycles.

Says Thomas Horton, president of THA, "We're charting the development of the motorcycle over a period of 120 years, but we're not getting bogged down with the technology." For example, he explains, "Motorcycles were frequently used by dispatch riders [during World War I] who constantly rode back and forth to give reports to generals behind the lines. The '20s and '30s saw a great growth in motorcycles. They were also used by the Germans and Italians during World War II."

A major motorcycle boom also occurred after the end of World War II, Horton notes. "Germany and Japan were completely destroyed. To rebuild those countries, people needed transportation. That's how motor scooters and mopeds came about - people constructed them from all forms of junk material."

Revolution on Wheels, which is being shot in high-def, has a budget in the US$250,000 to $280,000 range. It will air on Discovery's Travel Channel next year. Simon Bacal