Netflix Buys '2.6 Seconds' Walker Shooting Docuseries — SkimNews
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- Netflix acquired "2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback" for worldwide distribution in a preemptive buy ahead of the four-part docuseries' world premiere at TIFF's Primetime strand on Sept. 10
- Darren Dale makes his directorial debut with the series, which uses archival footage, courtroom testimony and interviews with both families to reconstruct the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker by Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe in the remote community of Yuendumu
- Blackfella Films produced the series, co-commissioned by SBS and NITV with major investment from Screen Australia's First Nations department and Screen NSW, and produced in association with All3Media International
- The series centers on the 2.6 seconds between the first and last shot — a window that Dale says upended the lives of those involved as well as Australia's national discourse on Indigenous justice
- Dale frames the project as a deliberate rejection of binary framings ("either the cop is the villain or the victim had it coming"), instead examining the conditions of both a young Alice Springs officer policing a 90% Aboriginal community and a young Aboriginal man's life circumstances
- The series follows Dale's 2012 documentary "The Tall Man" about the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody on Palm Island, and his AACTA-winning drama "Total Control," which also premiered at TIFF Primetime in 2019
- TIFF VP of market programming Geoff Macnaughton said international programmer Jason Ryle discovered "2.6 Seconds" during the summer, and that TIFF previously programmed Blackfella Films' "Total Control" in 2019, which went on to win best TV drama at the AACTA Awards
Why it matters: The preemptive global buy signals strong international streamer confidence in a four-part Australian Indigenous-justice documentary before festival audiences have even screened it — giving Dale's directorial debut a worldwide platform and amplifying a case study of Aboriginal deaths in police custody into Netflix's global slate.
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