SBS is turning up the volume on under-represented Australian voices with the return of its Digital Originals strand, locked in to premiere June 19 across NITV and SBS On Demand.
The new cycle rolls out three shortform scripted titles—Moonbird, Warm Props, and Moni—each backed by the network’s long-running partnership with Screen Australia. The initiative continues its push to incubate fresh talent and perspectives, with this year’s slate spanning First Nations storytelling and a queer Pasifika-Australian narrative, developed specifically for digital-first platforms.
First up is Moonbird (June 19), which follows a father-son reconnection through the muttonbirding tradition in Tasmania’s remote Furneaux Islands. Warm Props (June 26) jumps to Western Australia with a biting behind-the-scenes dramedy set on a spiraling film shoot. Rounding out the lineup is Moni (July 3), the most surreal of the trio, charting one man’s existential spiral after his deceased mother quite literally drops from the sky.
All three titles land on SBS On Demand with multilingual subtitles—including Arabic, Vietnamese, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese—as the network sharpens its pitch to digitally fluent, multilingual audiences.
Digital Originals has proven to be a key talent pipeline for SBS, with past alumni including Dylan River (Robbie Hood) and Stevie Cruz Martin (Evaporated) going on to helm larger projects. With linear and streaming both in play, the new releases are positioned to broaden reach and industry footprint in a market where shortform storytelling continues to carve out space.
