AustLit

Set in 1916, Beneath Hill 60 is the never-before told story of the Australian and German miners who served at the Western Front during the First World War. After enlisting in the Australian Imperial Forces, Queensland mining expert Oliver Woodward is sent to the front to take charge of a small group of miners during the one of the bloodiest battles in history. The soldier-miners from both sides drive their narrow tunnels under no man's land, attempting to out-manoeuvre and undermine each other as they create a great labyrinth of tunnels. It's a silent and savage war where one tiny sound can turn a man from hunter to hunted, where skilled listeners are more sought after than fighters.

The world's most accident-prone man, Roger Crumpkin, works as a handyman for the world's largest free-range egg company, run out of the Sydney Egg House (formerly the Sydney Opera House). When he uncovers a plot by his employer to lace the eggs with nicotine, he and his employer's girlfriend Sunday Valentine (a former chicken sexer and UFO enthusiast) must stop him.

A modern-day Ned Kelly struggles to save his family island. Since it's against his beliefs to rob banks for his own profit, he must find another way to come up with the money.

Though the primary influence on Serious's modern-day outlaw and folk hero is Ned Kelly (as in, for example, Reckless Kelly's name and armour), the character also has shades of Robin Hood (in, for example, his refusal to rob banks for his own profit and in Hugo Weaving's villain, 'Sir John').

Like Serious's previous film, Young Einstein, this film is alternate history (in the sense of the fantasy sub-genre): in this instance, Serious works from an Australian folk-hero, but his concern is as much with the myth (and the construction of myth) as it is with the reality.

Albert Einstein, the son of a Tasmanian apple farmer, accidentally splits the atom (with a chisel) while trying to find a way to put bubbles back into beer. Travelling to Sydney to patent his new theory of relativity, Einstein romances Marie Curie and incidentally invents both rock and roll and surfing.