David Wenham to star in East Timor miniseries for ABC TV
ABC
31/05/2005

ABC TV's Head of Drama Scott Meek today announced David Wenham has been signed to star in Answered by Fire, a three-hour miniseries about the 1999 referendum in East Timor and its bloody aftermath.

Answered by Fire will start shooting on June 27 in southeast Queensland.

Wenham (After the Deluge, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and currently on screen in Three Dollars) will play an Australian policeman whose life is irrevocably changed when he volunteers for the UN mission in Timor.

Co-starring as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer on the same mission is Quebec actress Isabelle Blais (featured in the Oscar-winning The Barbarian Invasions).

The third lead - that of a young Timorese translator who becomes involved with the Canadian policewoman -- will be played by an as yet uncast East Timorese actor.

The story is based on extensive interviews with both Timorese and members of the UN mission, all of whom lived through the events of '99.

The miniseries is the first drama co-production between ABC TV and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Australian production house Beyond Simpson Le Mesurier (Stingers, Halifax f.p.) has teamed with Canadian companies Muse Entertainment Enterprises (Hound of the Baskervilles, Neverending Story) and Mindless Entertainment to produce the show, in association with the Australian Film Finance Corporation and the Pacific Film and Television Commission.

Jessica Hobbs, lead director of the Logie-award-winning Love My Way, will direct the miniseries. The script was co-written by Canadian executive producer Barbara Samuels (North of 60, Black Harbour) and Australian screenwriter and playwright Katherine Thomson (Grass Roots, Halifax f.p. and the play Mavis Goes To Timor).

In addition to Samuels, executive producers are Roger Simpson, Michael Prupas, Mikael Borglund and Scott Meek. The producers are Roger Le Mesurier and Andy Walker.