Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund and Pride Foundation Australia are offering a $40,000 grant to support the production of an LGBTQIA+ short film.
The selected film, up to 10 minutes long, will make its world premiere at next year’s Adelaide Film Festival.
Creative teams must identify as LGBTQIA+. Priority will be given to applicants who are First Nations, newly arrived migrants, forcibly displaced people including refugees, from CALD backgrounds and/or regional and rural communities.
“Making a short film is such a critical stepping stone for emerging writers, directors and producers and, with this new initiative, we want to support the career development of LGBTQIA+ writers and directors and encourage them to form a creative team with an experienced producer, preferably South Australian,” said Adelaide Film Festival CEO and creative director Mat Kesting.
“The world premiere of the selected short film at the Adelaide Film Festival will lead, we hope, to the creative team going on to make many more screen projects – which one day may also be Adelaide Film Festival world premieres.”
Pride Foundation Australia chair Ruth McNair added that the initiative was designed to support underrepresented filmmakers and less amplified voices within the community.
“This investment will not only benefit individual career development but will also benefit LGBTQIA+ people and allied communities in Australia through seeing themselves represented on screen. This is part of our greater mission to advocate for systemic change for the most marginalised LGBTQIA+,” she said.
Experienced producers who are not LGBTQIA+ will be considered on a case-by-case basis where they can demonstrate a prior track record in successfully producing scripted short films to a high standard.
Applications close September 12, with the successful team will be announced late October.