The Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) has boldly demonstrated its commitment to promoting a flourishing industry for Australian scriptwriters by presenting three significant new awards for excellence in performance writing at the 40th Annual AWGIE awards in Sydney on Friday 31st August.
These new awards are the Foxtel Fellowship recognizing and rewarding excellence and achievement in television writing presented to Mac Gudgeon; the Richard Wherrett Prize for excellence in playwriting, which has been awarded to Angela Betzien for her play Hoods; and the Kit Denton Fellowship, rewarding and promoting courage and excellence in Australian performance writing presented to Ian David.
According to Tim Pye, President of the Australian Writers’ Guild, these awards offer talented writers a significant opportunity to get a work of their choice off the ground and into the market – a luxury that is not often available to writers.
‘Writers create. Directors interpret. Producers facilitate. Recognising writers as a creative driving force and helping them reach their markets is what the AWG strives for,’ he said.
* The Foxtel Fellowship For Excellence in Television Writing
Inaugural Recipient: Mac Gudgeon
Supported by: Foxtel and the Australian Writers’ Foundation (AWF)
Mac Gudgeon has been offered $25,000 to develop a new screen project of his choice as the recipient of the inaugural Foxtel Fellowship for Excellence in Television Writing, a joint initiative between the Australian Writers’ Foundation (AWF) and Foxtel.
Mac is a renowned Australia television writer best known for the seminal television mini-series Waterfront (1984) and the feature film (with Jan Sardi) Ground Zero (1987). The Foxtel Fellowship rewards Mac’s excellence and achievement in television writing and will allow him to develop a new project for television of his own choosing, to the stage where it can be presented to market.
The AWF/Foxtel initiative recognises the contribution of television writing to the development of the Australian cultural landscape, rewards and encourages excellence and achievement, and facilitates the development of quality new screen projects. It marks a significant level of confidence in Australian writing talent.
Mac’s other credits include Halifax f.p.: Sweet Dreams (1996), Halifax f.p.: The Feeding (1994), Dogwoman: A Grrrl’s Best Friend (2000) and Good Guys Bad Guys (1997). He is currently writing the feature film King of the River – The Weary Dunlop Story and adapting the novel The Last Ride to the screen.
The Australian Writers’ Foundation is the charitable arm of the AWG. The Foxtel Fellowship forms part of an important industry relationship between Australia’s leading subscription television provider and the peak professional body representing Australian television writers.
* The Richard Wherrett Prize for Excellence in Playwriting
Inaugural Recipient: Angela Betzien, Hoods
Supported by: Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL) Cultural Fund
The Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG), with the generous support of Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) Cultural Fund, has awarded Angela Betzien the inaugural $40,000 Richard Wherrett Prize for Excellence in Playwriting for her youth theatre production, Hoods.
Hoods was co-commissioned and co-produced by Sydney Opera House and Regional Arts Victoria who will share the prize with Angela. The nation’s richest playwriting prize is designed to recognise excellence in writing for theatre and reward theatre companies for showing commitment to new Australian works.
Angela Betzien has won several awards for her playwriting including the Queensland Theatre Company Young Playwright’s Award three years in succession (1994-1996). She has been a Writer-in-Residence with the Queensland Theatre Company, has taught at the Queensland University of Technology and has been a member of the Queensland Theatre Company Board.
The Prize is named in honour of one of Australia’s leading arts figures, Richard Wherrett who was a co-founder of the Nimrod Theatre and was appointed the first Artistic Director and CEO of the Sydney Theatre Company. He directed 127 professional theatre productions as well as opera, film, television and festivals. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 1984 and died in 2001.
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), the major sponsor of the prize through its Cultural Fund, is a not-for-profit, member-based organisation, whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material.
* The Kit Denton Fellowship
Inaugural Recipient: Ian David
Supported by: Zapruder’s Other Films, Fremantle Media Australia, Crikey, GNWTV, Kennedy Miller Mitchell and Tress Cox Lawyers
Ian David has been awarded the inaugural $25,000 Kit Denton Fellowship, allowing him to pursue his courageous project over the next 12 months.
An initiative of the AWF, the Kit Denton Fellowship is named in memory of Kit Denton, the late father of media personality, Andrew Denton. The Fellowship has been developed to reward courage and excellence in performance writing.
A renowned screenwriter, Ian is best known for his ground breaking reality-based dramas Police State and Police Crop, which won AFI Awards in 1989 and 1990 and the AWGIE Award winning Joh’s Jury (1992). Ian is looking to draw on his own study of the legal system to create a 13-part TV series about law – the ‘bedrock of civilisation’ – and its relationship, if any, to justice.
Kit Denton was a lifetime member of the AWG, scriptwriter, author, poet and lyricist. According to his son, ‘Kit was a writer’s writer, unfailingly professional, a man of commitment and integrity and never afraid to speak the truth as he saw it. When approached by AWF President, Geoffrey Atherden, about the Fellowship, I suggested the criteria be simple: the writer’s work must demonstrate courage,’ Andrew said.
‘With an increasing concentration of media ownership coinciding with a rise in fundamentalist thinking, the need for genuine free-thinkers, those unafraid to question and challenge the status-quo, is greater than ever.’
[release from the Australian Writers’ Guild]