The minds behind an epic war film about soldiers who trained at Maitland in preparation for World War I have embarked on a search for family histories.
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The producers of the upcoming feature film The 34th Battalion, Ian and Luke Sparke, have launched a search across Maitland for stories to be featured in a series on Australian family history.
“After working years on the development of The 34th Battalion we’ve been given so many incredible stories and we realised we couldn’t fit them all into one film,” Luke said.
“This new idea enables us to hopefully create a series of personal stories that will be produced concurrent to the 34th being made.
“I know there are so many more great stories out there, especially in the Maitland district that is rich with history.”
Written during two decades by former Vacy man Ian Sparke, The 34th Battalion tells the story of the army battalion that trained in Maitland and left for war from Farley railway station on May 1, 1916.
This latest project on Australian family history will feature 13 episodes.
“This new series gives us the opportunity to tell amazing stories from Australian families while we continue to work on our feature films and develop, prepare and design task for other productions,” Ian said.
“It gives us the opportunity to link in stories from our near and distant past and it makes us very proud to be able to link in stories from my spiritual home of Maitland and the mid north coast and tell them authentically and creatively.”
All submissions to the project will be kept confidential. For more information contact producer Melanie Imrie via the SparkeFilms History Design Team Facebook page.