Set in urban Sydney in a dystopian near future, the sci-fi series brings timely issues of race relations, border protection and refugees to Berlin film festival

It’s another busy morning in Potsdamer Platz: black-clad people stream into the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, hurriedly grabbing coffees from street-trucks before the first deals of the day. By 10am script pitches can be heard at tables as numbers are crunched – it’s business as usual in the film precinct of the 66th Berlin international film festival.

On the mezzanine floor above, a very different conversation begins: the first of the day’s press junkets kicks off with the cast and crew of ambitious Aboriginal television series, Cleverman. One of six international programs invited for Berlinale Special Series, a showcase for “television with cinematic ambitions”, it’s the first Australian TV show ever to be invited to show at Berlinale.

Ten to watch at the Berlin film festival 2016 Read more

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iain Glen, Hunter Page-Lochard and Rob Collins, who star in ABC TV show Cleverman Photograph: Lisa Tomasetti

The first two episodes of this big-budget, six-part Australia-New Zealand co-production will have their world premiere that afternoon. Lead director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires), series creator Ryan Griffen and actors Deborah Mailman and Frances O’Connor have all just stepped off planes; a plethora of creative personnel hunker down to be questioned by European film media.

Set in a dystopic “near-future”, superhuman ‘Hairypeople’ have emerged. Considered “subhuman”, they are ghettoised in “containment zones” or sent to torturous detention centres. Given the show’s piercing resonance around issues such as border protection, refugees and racism, Cleverman strikes a nerve with the German journalists – the big question the Australians repeatedly field is, “But how did you know?” The program-makers must have had a crystal ball to forecast Germany’s current, massive refugee conundrum; within 12 months the country, has seen a million displaced persons cross its borders.

But Cleverman’s narrative is couched squarely within Australia’s own divisive asylum-seeker situation – plus a brutal colonial past, ancient Aboriginal mythology and the science fiction genre. The dense, high-concept storyline plays out between Indigenous half-brothers (newcomers Hunter Page-Lochard and Rob Collins) pitted against each other and an ancient mythological monster wreaking havoc in urban Sydney.

If this sounds to you like sci-fi allegories District 9 or X-Men, you’re right: serious discourse with spectacular pay off is the idea. Ryan Griffen says he wanted to invent “a superhero my own son could connect to, while learning about his Indigenous culture”.

Carefully gathering the Dreaming stories from around Australia – with permission from elders to re-tell them – Griffen’s aim was to “put 60,000 years of old stories in a modern context, and keep them rooted in culture”. With effects-whizzes Weta Workshop (Lord of the Rings) on board, a contemporary hip-hop score featuring rapper Briggs (also a cast member), and international actors such as Iain Glen (Game of Thrones) joining the 80% Indigenous cast, Cleverman speaks to a burgeoning world audience unafraid of adventurous TV that blends realism with fantasy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maliyan (Adam Briggs) at The Zone in a screen shot from Cleverman, which has an 80% Indigenous Australian cast Photograph: ABC

A four hundred-strong crowd welcomed the show to its red carpet premiere. While applause beforehand was enthusiastic, afterwards it was thunderous, punctuating the post-screening Q&A when Wayne Blair answered another social justice-related question. The moderator wondered how it might ever be possible for “fictional media” to make a difference: “What can it do?”

Recalling the experiences of Aboriginal Australia, Blair replied, “One has to take responsibility. It’s our history of how we treat ‘the other’ in society that makes us who we are.

“You make films about how you wish the world was like. Hopefully, you can push people to change.”