Leading Australian comedians Christiaan Van Vuuren (Bondi Hipsters, Soul Mates) and Adele Vuko (Skit Box, Soul Mates) are in Cannes with their 5 x 5 minute comedy series, Over and Out, one of ten projects selected for the Canneseries Short Form Competition in 2019.
In the web series that will air on YouTube in June, young parents Lewis and Freya are battling the cute and cuddly horrors of parenting a new baby and a toddler, alongside the actual horrors of fighting ravenous zombies, dehydration, disease and feral kid gangs.
“Adele and I had babies,” Van Vuuren told MIPTV News of their inspiration for the show, “and we decided we wanted to do something together to kind of channel the crazy stuff that was happening to us.”
“We’ve been calling it relationship therapy,” Vuko said of a series that confronts the “uncontrollable and horrifying” aspects of raising two young children. The married actors and comedians were soon inspired to create a series in which two parents raise their toddlers (played by the stars’ actual children) “in a post-apocalypse riddled with zombies and danger,” she added.
“It’s kind of based on your worst fears of what the world could become,” said Van Vuuren of the paranoia that often accompanies parenthood, especially in a world of heightened political tensions.
Co-funded by Screen Australia and YouTube, and produced by Midwinter Films, Over and Out has also given the duo to chance to progress into long-form as opposed to sketch comedy formats, with plans for a 30 minute episode series of Over and Out also in the works.
Following the April 10 CannesSeries screening, Van Vuuren said the online publication of the series on YouTube in June 14 “will be used as a proof of concept for the half hour version of the show.”
And the creators are confident the show’s core concept will resonate globally. “The theme of raising babies while trying to survive the end of the world, we all have the same fears as human beings,” he said.
“The zombie and apocalyptic context and landscape is a backdrop to exploring universal parenting issues,” Vuko added.
This and more in the MIPTV News.
