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AWG announces Monte Miller Award finalists

Six projects have been shortlisted for the Australian Writers’ Guild’s Monte Miller Awards, to be presented later this month in Melbourne.

The six unproduced screenplays were selected from a pool of over 390 entries across two categories, with scripts ranging from dramas and sci-fi thrillers to comedies and an online horror series. All projects are now available via the AWG’s Pathways Showcase. Television and web series project dominate those shortlisted.

Scripted Ink. will invest $35,000 of script development funding across the two successful projects as part of an ongoing commitment to supporting the development of writers and commercially viable scripts.

The final judging panel for the competition praised the quality of entries across both categories, commenting that “with the standard of entries so high, coming up with a shortlist for this year’s Monte Miller Awards was no easy task. The selected writers and their projects demonstrate a level of skill and craft, as well as imagination, that sets them apart as the very best of Australia’s up-and-coming creatives, a sign of exciting times to come for our industry.”

The 2019 Monte Miller Shortlist

Long Form category

Keeping House by Jasper Garner Gore and Rebecca Moret [Television]

Two disaffected millennials house-sitting a mansion discover that the owners have died in a plane crash and steal their identities, and the house.

Dark State by Justin Caruana, Matteo Zingales and Nikki Waterhouse [Television]

In a secret world only the determined will prevail.

Anomaly by Philip Tarl Denson [Television]

Three astronauts return from the International Space Station only to discover that they had already returned 12 years earlier…

Short Form category

Nobody’s Perfect by Emme Hoy [Television]

Halfway through her uni degree, a highly-strung perfectionist accidentally kills her Ritalin-dealing tutor and realises that once you start killing, it’s hard to stop.

Blooded by James Cripps [Web Series]

A bullied teen learns he can save his dying mother by becoming a human blood runner in the ruthless vampire underground.

The Black Tulip by Lâle Teoman [Web Series]

Sahika, a somnambulist, discovers a secret passage in a mountainside that leads her to a mysterious lake where memories of those passed are imprinted in the water.

The winners of the Monte Miller Awards will be announced at a dedicated industry event hosted by Eliza Reilly in Melbourne on February 25