In an announcement on June 4, South Australian Premier, the Hon Mike Rann, confirmed funding for the National Screenwriters’ Conference (NSC) – a project of the Australian Writers’ Guild – to run concurrently and in partnership with the Adelaide Film Festival from 19 to 21 February 2009.
This exciting new partnership will create opportunities to explore the latest developments in writing and its processes through the Conference and complementary programming within the festival, and along with the South Australian Film Corporation’s announcement of the Film and Screen Hub, continues to grow film making opportunities in South Australia.
The 2009 Adelaide Film Festival will have factual and fictional bookends with the Australian International Documentary Conference, to be held over the festival’s opening days, and the National Screenwriters’ Conference over the final weekend.
Along with the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund, and initiatives like the Crossover residential workshop this new partnership confirms Adelaide Film Festival as the festival for filmmakers to come together to celebrate and discuss the making of film.
Australian Writers’ Guild Executive Director, Jacqueline Woodman says, ‘The National Screenwriters’ Conference provides a vital forum for writers for the screen, and the industry that works with them, to congregate and share ideas, be challenged and take risks’.
Adelaide Film Festival Director, Katrina Sedgwick says, ‘The opportunity to work with the National Screenwriters Conference is a wonderful one for the Adelaide Film Festival. We look forward to exploring the challenges that the film community as a whole needs to address in terms of future narratives that can meaningfully engage with audiences now and in the future.
The Adelaide Film Festival and Australian Writers’ Guild celebrate this new partnership and anticipate it will be an ongoing relationship.
The Adelaide Film Festival was recently named in Variety’s top fifty film festivals. The 2009 Adelaide Film Festival takes place from 19 February to 1 March 2009.
[Release by Miranda Brown Publicity]