HOLIDAY STREAMING
Australian soap “Neighbours“ will air episodes through the Christmas holiday and feature a holiday-themed episode arc. These will include the wedding of couple Chloe Brennan and Elly Conway, played by April Rose Pengilly and Jodi Gordon respectively.
“Neighbours” ran for more than three decades and nearly 9,000 episodes before being canceled in 2022 when the show’s primary funder, U.K.’s Channel 5, pulled out. Freevee then picked up the rights from “Neighbours” producer and distributor Fremantle. The new season is a continuation of the long-running daily drama series about the lives, loves and challenges of the residents on Ramsay Street in Erinsborough, Australia, a fictional suburb of Melbourne.
The new series launched on Sept. 18 this year and picks up two years after the finale left off. The holiday timeline marks the first time in years that “Neighbours” will air continuous new episodes the week of the Dec. 25 and Jan. 1, 2024. “Neighbours” streams exclusively on Amazon Freevee in the U.K. and U.S. and on Prime Video in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. Australia’s Network 10 retains first-run rights in Australia for the new chapter of the series.
DISABILITY FESTIVAL
Thomas Charles Hyland’s documentary “This Is Going to Be Big” will open the Oska Bright Film Festival (March 11-17, 2024). The Brighton-based festival celebrates all that’s best in disability filmmaking with satellite screenings being confirmed across the U.K., including Manchester, Glasgow, Oxford and Birmingham. With less than 5% of disabled people working in the U.K. film industry, the festival aims to make change happen. Among the festival highlights this year is the world premiere of Samuel Dore’s stars”Asa” by Samuel Dore, starring Nicholas Pinnock; Gemma Arterton and Bethany Asher in “The Cunning” from director Alexandra Maher; and the documentary strand’s “Enquire Within,” “Prophecy,” “My Light Will Blind You,” “Sandstone and Concrete,” “Down Home,” “Twin Link,” “Time and Space,” “Skate Spectrum” and “Angel Meadow: The Forgotten Genesis.”