Late Development - Currently Raising Capital

James Vegter - Writer - Producer - Director - Actor

MagicLands is a captivating eight-episode period drama set in early Southern Australia from 1803 to 1869, a significant period in The State of Victoria and Indigenous history. The story delves into the changes that occur within the spirit of the land while indigenous families face displacement by European and British settlers and the British Crown arriving to take their land. At the soul of this narrative is the heart-wrenching love story between Purranmurnin (Purra) Tullawurnin (1803-1869), a Wadawurrung resistance fighter and musician, and her husband, William Buckley (1780-1856), an escaped British convict who spent an extraordinary thirty-two years living with the Wadawurrung People before colonists arrived in 1835. Through their intertwined lives, the series presents two extraordinary tales of survival despite both Purra and Buckley facing mistreatment, one a convict and the other as an Indigenous woman navigating a lawless frontier during a silent war when Melbourne and Geelong were formed.

EPISODES:  8 x 60-70 minutes eps, rating MA 15+

STORY-LINE

A convict on the run and his indigenous wife struggle to stay alive when gun-slinging colonisers arrive to take the land.

Synopsis, 

Within the oppressive confines of Framlingham's mission in 1867, Victoria, Australia, Wadawurrung elder Purra finds herself entangled in a relentless interrogation claiming to be the widow of British convict Buckley. Their heart-wrenching story traces back to the year 1803, when William Buckley escapes the oppression of a British penal settlement at Sullivans Bay and after months on the run is found by a Wadawurrung family barely alive.  In an extraordinary twist of fate, the family adopts him believing him to be a murrup (ghost spirit) of Murrangurk. As he adapts to their way of life and they become the family he never had, he stumbles upon Purra (17), a young woman running away from an arranged marriage, and they fall deeply in love, defying cultural boundaries and lore of the land. Yet, their happiness is marred by the devastating onslaught of smallpox, which kills their newborn daughter, Kalina, and Purra is taken back by her family.  To make matters worse, the Batman family, Henry, John and Eliza, and the British government arrive, and their love is threatened as a silent war erupts along the frontier. Colonisers and sheep arrive daily as settlements in Geelong and Melbourne develop, and squatters seize land from Indigenous families. Purra joins the resistance, standing firm in the face of adversity. Meanwhile, Buckley assumes the role of Interpreter and Commander of the Indigenous for the British Government, struggling to bridge the widening divide between the two cultures. Will they defy the odds and find a way to survive together?  

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT www.magiclands.com.au

Timeline of Australian History

50,000-60,000 BC – Oldest known archaeological sites of human occupation in Australia in Arnhem Land.  

42,000 BCE – archaeological evidence that Tasmanian Aborigine People were living in this area north of Hobart.

1520’s – Portuguese explorers claim to discover the island. 

1606 - Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon records the first landing and names the island New Holland. 

1642 - Abel Tasman was the first known European expedition to reach Van Diemens Land and New Zealand. 

1770 – British explorer James Cook claims the land was terra nullius ('no one's land'), despite what he saw on a voyage up the east coast of Australia. On the 29th of April, he arrived on land and named the area Botany Bay. 

1788 – First British ships arrived at Botany Bay and established a penal colony, the first colony of New Holland, which is later named Sydney.

1797- George Bass explore Southeast New Holland and names Western Port. 

1798 – George Bass and Mathew Flinders circumnavigated Van Diemen’s Land.

1801-02 – Mathew Flinders circumnavigates New Holland and calls the island Australia.  

1802 – John Murray surveys Port Phillip Bay on Boonwurrung Land for a month and names a mountain, Arthurs Seat. 

1802 – Circumnavigating Australia, Matthew Flinders spots a French Ship, Geographe in Southern Australia before arriving at Port Phillip Bay. He climbs the You Yangs on Wathaurong Land, returning to Great Britain with word of good land along the Bass Coast, in many parts, a fertile appearance." 

The series begins….