The ABC fantasy series aimed at young audiences has just commenced production in Melbourne.

After producing two of the finest local small screen moments in the past two years with The Slap and Robert Connolly’s Underground: The Julian Assange Story,

Matchbox Pictures – and the projects they announce – are garnering serious buzz.

And the local production house has just announced a new 13-part TV series for ABC3
titled Nowhere Boys, which has just begun shooting in Melbourne.

Created and produced by Tony Ayres, the fantasy action-adventure series follows
four teenage boys who get lost in the forest and discover, when they return home,
that they are in an alternate world identical to theirs except for one startling
difference – they were never born.

Playing the four lead boys is a fistful of up and coming talent – Joel Lok (who was
nominated for an AFI Award for Best New Talent in Ayres’ The Homesong Stories),
Dougie Baldwin (who will be seen in ABC1’s upcoming comedy series Upper Middle
Bogan), Rahart Sadiqzai (Neighbours) and newcomer Matt Testro.

Behind the camera, the project has assembled experienced directorial talent in Daina
Reid (Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, Offspring, I
Love You Too),Peter Carstairs (September), Alister Grierson (Sanctum, Kokoda) and
Craig Irvin (Tethered), who has also been a writer on the series.

It sounds like promising stuff, especially given the fact that young adult local drama
is a genre that’s sadly lacking on our screen.

Further tapping into the teen market, the series will also encompass a unique online
transmedia project, which will be rolled out to coincide with its runtime on
television. Online participants will take on the persona of a fifth lost boy in a
narrative that will run parallel to the TV series with both storylines set to converge in
a dramatic twist.

Nowhere Boys is set to screen late 2013 or early 2014.

by Cara Nash | April 10, 2013 | FILMINK