Jessica Castello in Anno 2020

The Australian filmmakers of the award-winning, mystery-drama Anno 2020 are celebrating after having inked a worldwide distribution deal with US-based streamer Fawesome TV.

Shot for a total budget of only US$6,000 (approx. AU$9,000), this controversial feature film fits into the somewhat romantic-sounding but in-reality-brutal “no budget” category.  

The streaming milestone follows sold-out red carpet cinema screenings of Anno 2020 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in 2024, as well as a successful international film festival run.

Future Today Inc., who own Fawesome TV, recently announced that besides its free ad-supported global streaming service, they now reach 75 million US households directly. This expanded distribution is being achieved across connected television platforms including Roku, Fire TV, Samsung TV Plus, Vizio and LG.

Anno 2020’s Australian writer-director James Morcan, who adapted the movie from his published novel of the same name, today confirmed the film is being distributed by the on-the-rise streaming company and is already available to watch on that platform.

“I’m delighted that Fawesome TV are distributing our one-of-a-kind and truly epic movie to the world,” Morcan said from his Sydney office. “Fawesome are a great American streaming service to be associated with for this film – and hopefully for future movies my associates and I have in the works.”

The film’s editor and director of photography, Sydneysider Simon Carter, said today he was overwhelmed by Anno 2020’s continuing accolades.

“Our production is not a commercial one in the strictest sense. It’s more of a throwback to when movies were often made for art’s sake alone,” said Carter. “It’s fitting that one of the awards Anno 2020 won was Best Experimental Film at the Titan International Film Festival. That award is reflective of the pioneering filmmaking and storytelling techniques we used to get this done.

“So the whole team is amazed by the commercial breakthroughs our humble production is beginning to achieve.”

In something of a paradox for its minuscule budget Anno 2020 was, against all odds, filmed in 17 cities around the world during the Covid lockdowns of 2020-2021.

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Carter said he believed most people could not even conceive of the immense challenges involved in producing and releasing an international feature film without a budget.

“James and I have been toiling away on the edit to create what we hope the world eventually considers a masterpiece and something that ages well…But it’s been really tough without a budget and so many times it seemed impossible to ever finish it, let alone release it.

“In the end it came down to our ability to pioneer new filming methods as well as some serious hard yakka. One example of resourcefulness was pushing our only available post-production tech to its absolute limits and even at times using fans to cool them down.”

Billed as a global kaleidoscope of interconnected characters seeking redemption, answers and justice amidst the chaos of 2020, the film somewhat remarkably features an ensemble of renowned actors from around the world.

The cast includes leading Australians Erin Connor (Occupation: Rainfall), Greg Poppleton (The Chronicles of Narnia), Brett Partridge (Water Rats) and Audrey Nitschke (Wolf Like Me), American veterans Kevin Scott Allen (American Primeval), Sheila Ball (Assault On VA-33) and La Rivers (Equal Standard), as well as Chinese-American Crystal J. Huang (Dark Feathers) and US actor-singer Jessica Castello (Oildale).

James Morcan, who also acts in Anno 2020, believes the movie adaptation of his novel could only ever have been done independently and without traditional film financiers.

“I’m a bit old-school in that I believe censorship has no place whatsoever in art. For my directorial debut, I wanted to cover the contentious handling of the Covid-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related challenges experienced in 2020. This included alternative analyses that were regularly censored from appearing in mainstream media and social media outlets. Given the lack of freedom of speech in the arts at the time, it seemed obvious no financiers or distributors would back our production before filming commenced.

“However, because we had the courage to cover explosive topics widely discussed in the general public but never acknowledged by Hollywood studios or television networks, we may ultimately end up with something quite commercial. After all, timing is everything in the film industry…and Anno 2020 seems to be being released at a time when there is a growing desire for the truth about what went down during the Covid era…as well as increasing public demand for alternative voices to be heard.”

The film’s Sydney-based production company MoneyShot Productions hopes to announce further streaming and distribution deals for Anno 2020 in the coming months.

The Fawesome TV app is free for anyone to use, and Anno 2020 can be watched here.

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