‘Morally ambiguous’: New Hills drama from Mortal Kombat producers
Film producers behind Mortal Kombat and Kill Bill are switching gears to create a romantic drama set in the Adelaide Hills, with a spicy twist.
What if you meet the love of your life, but you’re both already married with kids?
And, what if your spouses are siblings?
It’s the question at the centre of a new SA film in development, called VINES, to be shot against the romantic backdrop of an Adelaide Hills winery.
The romantic drama, written by Kahli Gaskin, will be brought to life by Hills-based production company Sunup Workshop, whose lead producers’ credits include Mortal Kombat, Kill Bill and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The plot follows Eliza and her brother-in-law Ethan, who work on an art project together and unexpectedly fall in love. The film follows the pair grappling with whether they pursue their connection and how it could have consequences for their broader family.
Sunup co-founder and producer Isabelle Scott says the “morally ambiguous” plotline makes for a “really interesting love story” and is an example of how the industry is pivoting to celebrate SA despite the local industry getting little funding compared to other states.
It is expected the film will inject $2 million into SA’s economy and employ at least 60 South Australian cast and crew.
You might like
The project is launching to a room of SA’s top film executives and business owners this Saturday at a Gala dinner to raise revenue and the profile of the film project.
South Australia only tallies three per cent of the total spend on drama productions in Australia, Screen Australia research found, despite a golden era of filmmaking happening in Australia’s east coast.
Drama production in Australia amounted to a record $2.7 billion in 2024/25, Screen Australia research found – up 43 per cent from the previous year, thanks to an injection of international productions made here.
But the figures show spending is concentrated elsewhere, with Queensland topping the list with $935 million of expenditure, followed by NSW ($832 million) and Victoria ($731 million).
SA brought in just $94 million, down from $96 million the year before.
In SA, producers can receive 10 per cent of production or post-production spend as a grant, while the government offers a payroll tax exemption to producers shooting feature films in SA.
But producers have to pre-fund their grants with gap finance, and while SA Film Corporation does gap financing, Isabelle says it is “very competitive”.
Which is why Isabelle says she works with a “lean producing” model, to keep as much work in SA for filmmakers and actors despite budget restraints.
Subscribe for updates
Isabelle says that when her business partner, international producer E Bennett Walsh has worked on Hollywood-backed films like Mortal Kombat, it cost about $10 million “or more” in visual effects.
“We just don’t have that in SA, so what can we do and do it really well,” Isabelle says.
“Instead of doing visual effects or big stunts or that sort of thing, we take its story back to just the characters…it’s a character-driven story.
“We’re not doing action, we’re not doing gory horror, we are doing dramas, romantic comedies, real stories that sit with real people, that reflect what’s actually happening in the world.”
As part of their commitment to the SA film industry, the company has taken on six aspiring producers and filmmakers as part of their ‘producing pathways project’ to learn the ins and outs of film development.
Isabelle first met Bennett working with him on the first Mortal Kombat film, and she says she wants to give other aspiring producers the same opportunity on VINES.
One of the participants, Jasmin Watkins, says having the curtain pulled back on film financing was an “incredibly exciting” part of the program.
“It’s often hard to see how projects raise finance while managing all the other moving elements so being part of that process offers a rare and valuable insight into how a film comes together,” she says.
The film, currently in development, is expected to enter production later this year, and is in talks with Australian actress and producer Geraldine Hakewill, known for television shows Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Wanted to play a role in the romantic drama.
Isabelle says VINES is on the cusp of the “return of the rom-com” that the film industry is seeing at the moment, and that the drama can be done really well locally.
“We’d love to see more stories about the Hills, because you can’t really saturate SA filmmaking, SA stories,” she says.
“There’s no kind of competition; they all do something different.”
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
