Applications are now open for the third and final Hive Lab, an Adelaide Film Festival initiative in partnership with ABC Arts, Australia Council for the Arts, Screen Australia and the SAFC.
Designed to foster new opportunities for talent working in theatre, art, dance and other non-cinematic fields to collaborate with screen practitioners, the workshop will run during the AFF from October 18-21.
Filmmaker/ artist Lynette Wallworth, whose debut feature Tender was supported by the inaugural Hive fund, will lead this year’s lab. Tender had its world premiere at the 2013 AFF and then screened in competition at the Sydney and London Film Festivals and won the TV documentary prize at the 2015 AACTA Awards.
Applications for the Lab close on August 6 and participants will be announced early September.
Entries for the third and final Hive Fund will open in October, with successful projects to premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival 2017 and then screen on ABC TV.
The fund supports producer-director teams to make stand-alone projects than can be fiction or documentary, half hour, one hour or feature length.
Preference will be given to those with an established artist attached as director or co-director, and an experienced film producer attached.
The first Hive production fund in 2011 supported Tender, produced by Kath Shelper; I Want To Dance Better At Parties, from directors Gideon Obazarnek and Matthew Bate; and The Boy Castaways, a rock musical feature from director Michael Kantor, producers Jo Dyer and Stephen Armstrong and executive producer Robert Connolly.
In 2013, two features from first-time directors were commissioned out of the second Hive Fund – Spear, by Indigenous director and choreographer Stephen Page; and Girl Asleep, by theatre director Rosemary Myer. Both will premiere at this year’s AFF (October 15-25) and then screen on ABC.
Wallworth said: “As a recipient of the Hive Fund and a participant and mentor at Hive Labs I am thrilled to facilitate this process. While the fund secures the creation of at least two major new works that would otherwise not be created, the Lab fosters a host of new creative partnerships that will result in innovation for the next decade.”
AFF director and CEO Amanda Duthie said: “Hive is a rare and fine opportunity for Australian artists and filmmakers and the ongoing Lab partnership with Australia Council, ABC, Screen Australia and South Australian Film Corp is most welcomed.”
Screen Australia head of production Sally Caplan said: “Some amazing documentary and film projects have come out of this initiative. It is great to see talent from other fields expressing themselves so well in the cinematic form and we are delighted to contribute to this program again.”
SAFC CEO Annabelle Sheehan said: “Bringing artists and filmmakers together to explore brave, bold ideas provides an opportunity for different types of projects to receive support and funding and for them to reach audiences across multiple platforms."