Aussies Clean Up at the Web Series World Cup

By Travis Johnson

Australian web series High Life, starring Odessa Young as a young woman dealing with a bipolar episode, has taken first place at the 2017 Web Series World Cup,while fellow Australian series Bruce, a convict comedy set in the early days of colonisation, placed third.

All up five Australian web series placed in the top 20, with The Wizards of Aus at #14, Shakespeare Nation at #15, and Restoration squeezing in at #20 out of a total of over 500 ranked series from around the globe.

Founded in 2015, the Web Series World Cup ranks the most awarded web series from around the world by tabling results from 19 different webfests:  Vancouver Webfest, Baja Webfest, DC Webfest, T.O. Webfest, BAWebfest, Die Seriale, Melbourne Webfest, Valencia Cinema Jove, Austin Webfest, Sicily Webfest, KWebfest, Wendie Webfest, Webfest Berlin, Miami Webfest, Marseille Webfest, Bilbao Webfest, UK Webfest, NZ Webfest and Rio Webfest. This year High Life won over twenty major film festival awards including the Grand Jury Prize at Toronto Web Fest, Best Drama at the Berlin Web Fest and Best Australian Drama and Best Director at the Melbourne Web
Fest.

“Web series and web festivals are growing exponentially and so too is the quality of content and programming,” said director and co-creator Luke Eve. “For High Life to be reaching such a global audience and getting the recognition that it currently is a great thrill.”

Warwick Holt, who co-created Bruce with Matt Blackwell and Tony Rogers, said, “It’s been thrilling to see how well even a very Aussie series like Bruce has travelled worldwide. From Marseille to Munich, crowds have laughed and cheered, and taking the convicts of the First Fleet back to win awards in Britain verges on the surreal!”

The entire series of High Life will also be available to view this summer on 9Now (more details at HighLifeSeries.com), while Bruce can currently be seen free on YouTube via BruceTheSeries.com.