Screenrights will support six projects with more than $265,000 as part of this year’s cultural fund, which carries the focus of New Visions.
For the second year running, the organisation provided an expression of interest process to assist applicants who might benefit from extra support during the application stage, with five out of the six successful grant recipients engaging with t process.
Screenrights board director and cultural fund working group chair Rachel Antony was pleased to support the wider creative community through the fund.
“Our assessors had a wide range of compelling applications to consider, from across Australia and Aotearoa-New Zealand, and I’m inspired by the aims of all the selected projects and look forward to seeing the impact they create,” she said.
The successful applicants are as follows:
Pink Lake Creative Pathways and Connections Workshop Program
Activity: A place-based program that aims to break down barriers and empower 40 children from three rural and/or isolated communities in Western Victoria to access and engage with the screen industry through workshops across a six-month period. The workshops will focus on accessible augmented reality technology and build towards an outcome where participants present their story output at places they value in their communities.
Location: Three remote western VIC communities, Australia
Amount Funded: $45,000
Developing Diverse Screen Sound Practitioner Futures
Activity: With Griffith University and SAE Brisbane’s support, sound recordist Alicia Butterworth and sound designer Tfer Newsome will oversee a series of training workshops for under-represented emerging female and non-binary screen-sound professionals to teach critical skills and encourage career development and longevity. The workshops will focus on sound for drama, location sound for documentary and unscripted TV, future sound, post-sound, and the sound business. Each workshop will be delivered to 15-20 attendees to allow for hands-on access to equipment. In conjunction with these workshops, a kit of equipment will be made available to emerging sound practitioners for use on low to no budget projects so that they can access industry-standard equipment as they learn the craft and establish their networks.
Location: Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Amount Funded: $40,032.60
Unquiet Collective Distribution and Impact Lab
Activity: The Unquiet Collective will offer an intensive social impact and non-theatrical planning lab for three films in the lead-up to their release. The three film teams will be invited to work with Unquiet to develop their impact strategies and non-theatrical release plans. In addition to targeted advice with each film team, the lab will cover the following topics: development of impact strategy, sector mapping and partnership development, distribution strategy, non-theatrical tools and strategy, fundraising, PR, marketing, and theatrical release advice across three Zoom-based group calls. Each team will be equipped with a non-theatrical release toolkit which will include partnership MOUs, non-theatrical licence agreements, non-theatrical booking forms, screening guide templates, and more to set them up to reach wide audiences with their films.
Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Amount Funded: $50,000
THE LAB: First Nations Women Screen Directors Lab
Activity: THE LAB aims to develop and deliver a bespoke national screen directing workshop for six First Nations women across a 3-day period with the aim of growing their skillset and confidence so that they are more likely to pursue a career as directors in the industry. The topics covered in the lab will include how to feel safe as a director, who does what and why, what a director really does, script analysis and preparation, finding the right production team, rehearsals, blocking, how to communicate with actors and networking.
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia (with participants encouraged from regional communities nationally)
Amount Funded: $50,000
Screen Production Program for d/Deaf and Disabled Students
Activity: Touch Compass with JPF Films and Ingot Films will run a disability-led program that engages and teaches d/Deaf and Disabled aspirant producers/filmmakers the skills required to tell their own stories and build careers. The program will be executed as a one-week intensive and immersive experience and a five-week post-production experience for up to 12 selected d/Deaf and Disabled students. Participants will learn a range of technical and creative skills across the week, including directing and assistant directing, production coordination, cinematography, sound, lighting, scriptwriting, art department, working and communicating with Deaf, disabled, and diverse actors and crew, and editing.
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Amount Funded: $50,000
Queer Screen Development Toolkit
Activity: The Queer Screen Development Toolkit (QSDT) aims to provide support, guidance and resources for teams developing screen projects that feature queer themes, storylines, characters, and actors. Across a 12-month period, Proud Voices on Screen, in collaboration with several creatives, will generate an online toolkit to aid in the development of authentic and inclusive queer screen stories.
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Amount Funded: $30,730.46