Press release from
The Australian Writers’ Foundation is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2010 Kit Denton Fellowship is George Catsi for his comedic and ironic project, I Want to be Slim. The $30,000 Fellowship was presented by Andrew Denton as part of the 43rd Annual AWGIE Awards held this evening at The Peninsula in Melbourne.
The fellowship was set up in 2007 in memory of Kit Denton, scriptwriter, author, poet and lyricist, whose most famous work was the international best-selling novel The Breaker. Reflecting the courage of Kit’s own work, the purpose of the Fellowship is to promote courage in performance writing and to champion bold and challenging ideas.
George Catsi was inspired by his experience as a teenage volunteer for the evangelist Billy Graham’s famous Randwick meeting and his Greek Orthodox mother’s decision to become a born again Baptist, to create the comedy act Gods Cowboys. I Want to be Slim, is a morality tale centred on the Rev Slim Limits, leader of ‘The Church of the Holy Cowboy’, a satirical organisation that parallels the American Evangelical style churches, with references to Hillsong.
The $30,000 fellowship consists of a $25,000 cash prize and pro bono legal advice from TressCox Lawyers to the value of $5,000. The support of the Fellowship gives George the opportunity to develop the project to a more sophisticated and challenging format.
George Catsi (Sydney) has a diverse background which includes his time as co-owner/Executive Producer of FLICKERFEST International Short Film Festival.
The Kit Denton Fellowship is supported by Zapruder's other films, Animal Logic, FremantleMedia Australia, GNWTV Productions, Hopscotch Films, Princess Pictures, Shine Australia and TressCox Lawyers.
AWF President Geoffrey Atherden AM said that fellowships like this were invaluable in encouraging brave new works.
"I wish there were more like Andrew Denton and his co-sponsors willing to give such wholehearted support to a writer with a challenging idea."
In presenting the Kit Denton Fellowship, the Australian Writers’ Foundation, the charitable arm of the Australian Writer’s Guild, is demonstrating its commitment to increasing opportunities for satisfying and rewarding work for Australian performance writers.