Tauranga-born film-maker James Morcan has made his directorial debut with the global release of his mystery-drama film.

Anno 2020 premiered globally this week on YouTube, Rumble and other streaming platforms.

The Sydney-based Kiwi spent five years bringing the project to life, adapting the screenplay from his own published novel of the same name as well as directing the movie.

Produced by Australian production company MoneyShot Productions, the streaming release follows red-carpet cinema screenings of the film in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane last year.

Billed as a global kaleidoscope of interconnected characters seeking redemption, answers and justice amid the chaos of 2020, the movie was shot against all odds in 17 countries on four continents in four different languages during the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020-21.

“Anno 2020 is an indie, or independent, movie in the truest sense of the word,” said Morcan.

“It was self-financed for a budget of only US$6000 [$10,240], and is a pure indie, I promise you.

“We say controversial things in it that I assure you could never have been financed by anything within the mainstream movie industry.”

A billboard image for the movie Anno 2020. Photo / Supplied

Morcan insists that “99.9% of films advertised as indie movies are non-indies” and are dependent on the system.

“So-called ‘indie films’ often have stars or major distributors on board from the get-go, not to mention government finance.

“They often talk about ‘the difficulties of shooting indies on such a low budget’, then you find out they had millions or even tens of millions of dollars and were backed by a major corporation like Disney.

“The labels ‘indie’ and ‘independent’ were hijacked decades ago as major studios recognised those terms were being perceived as cool and audiences wanted more indies, or at least films sold as such, as they sensed artists had more creative freedoms in such films.

“However, if you go back in time, ‘indie’ originally meant completely independent and outside the ‘system’, as the word implies, and not beholden to anyone or anything, where rebellious, auteur-style directors could literally say whatever they wanted to without checking first with committees or government organisations or financiers or distributors.”

Morcan said as soon as he began writing the Anno 2020 screenplay, long before pre-production, he knew the film would get zero mainstream support and would have to be done as an old-fashioned indie, working against the odds.

“It was obvious that it was going to be near impossible, as we also had an epic story around the world with dialogue in different languages.

“Not to mention navigating shoots around the lockdowns and other Covid restrictions during 2020-21.

“Despite all the hardships of filming this beast, never once did my team or I ever stop to ask, ‘Are we allowed to say that?’ or ‘Will we be offending anyone?’ or anything like that. Why? Because we were truly independent and so far outside the system that we might as well have been making the movie on the moon.

“The end result is a film the likes of Hollywood or major production companies would never consider making.”

Early reviews for Anno 2020 signal that it resonates with film critics.

“If you yearn for the return of actual indie movies, then you may like to check it out. It’s very suitable for family viewing,” said Morcan.

The movie has been meticulously subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as for numerous foreign language audiences.

Anno 2020 is free to view on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nr2h-AMV-c&t=16s