australian television information archive

Top of the Lake

Produced by See-Saw Films Pty Ltd
in association with Screen Australia, Screen NSW and Fulcrum Media Finance
the BBC, UKTV, and the Sundance Channel

Executive Producers: Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Jane Campion
Producer: Philippa Campbell
Creators/Writers: Jane Campion and Gerard Lee
Directors: Jane Campion, Garth Davis, Ariel Kleiman

Aired: 2013, 2017

Twelve year old Tui Mitcham, daughter of the local drug lord, is pulled from the freezing waters of a South Island lake in New Zealand. She is discovered to be pregnant and won't say who the father is. Then she disappears. Robin Griffin is a gutsy but inexperienced detective called in to investigate. But as Robin becomes more and more obsessed with the search for Tui, she slowly begins to realise that finding the girl is tantamount to finding herself — a self she has kept well-hidden. (6x58min or 7x45min)

Top of the Lake: China Girl is a crime mystery story that begins four years on from the explosive ending of the first instalment. After the shocking events that rocked her hometown in New Zealand, Detective Robin Griffin, recently returned to Sydney, is trying to rebuild her life. When the body of an Asian girl washes up on Bondi Beach, there appears little hope of finding the killer, until Robin realizes "China Girl" didn't die alone. Robin's search to discover "China Girl's" identity takes her into the city's criminal underbelly and closer than she could have imagined to the secrets of her own heart. (6x58min)