Twenty 20

Twenty 20 Pty Ltd was established in 1995 in Melbourne, Australia, by Fiona Eagger and Brendan Lavelle. It was set up with the intention of creating a production company whose main aim was to tell stories with heart, that resonate with an audience. The company developed a slate across animation, features and television.

Twenty 20 Pty Ltd was also set up to consolidate the intellectual property from Fiona’s other productions Only the Brave (1994) and The Web Series 1 & 2 (1994). 

On forming Twenty 20, Fiona was invited to co-produce a major drama series for ABC television called Mercury, starring Geoffrey Rush. During this period development of The Way of the Birds (1998) and Mallboy (1999) started. The Way of the Birds is a 35-mm animation adapted from a children’s book of the same name. It was invited to many international festivals and won a host of awards. Mallboy was a low budget feature film that Twenty 20 had been developing for a number of years with writer/director Vincent Giarrusso. Mallboy was the only Australian feature film invited to the Cannes film festival in 2000 (Directors Fortnight).

During this time Brendan, the other director of the company, personally shot over 200 hours of television drama.

Twenty 20 developed projects for other production companies such as CoxKnight and Media World. The collaboration with CoxKnight led to Fiona being asked to co-produce the major television drama series Crashburn (2003), this time for broadcaster Network Ten. Crashburn was the first major creative alliance between Every Cloud directors Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox.