Graeme Mason's next steps in the screen industry have been revealed, with the former Screen Australia CEO to take over as chair of the New Zealand Film Commission.
The amount spent on scripted content in Australia in the last financial year - $2.34 billion across 213 titles - is only a smidgen down on the prior year's record high of $2.43 billion. Yet whereas 2021/22's result was driven by unseen levels of expenditure on local drama, 2022/23 was fuelled by an all-time high in foreign spend.
The Federal Government has appointed WildBrain chief operating officer Deirdre Brennan as the successor to Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason, who departs the agency in November.
Screen Australia has updated its games funding, replacing the Games: Expansion Pack with three new opportunities.
The third seasons of ABC series' 'Ginger and the Vegesaurs' and 'The Newsreader', as well as a new film from Sophie Hyde about Oscar Wilde's wife, are among the projects to share in $10 million of production funding from Screen Australia.
Screen Australia has unveiled the two studios that will share $600,000 through its First Nations Games Studio Fund, while also announcing $2.4 million for 21 games as part of the Games: Expansion Pack.
The records smashed by doco 'John Farnham: Finding the Voice' have proven that Australians will still come out in numbers to see local stories on the big screen, and there is significant optimism among exhibitors about the commercial potential of 'Force of Nature: The Dry 2'. However, broadly the year so far has been a very slow one for Australian films at the box office.
Overall gains in employment, significant growth in the digital games industry, and rising production costs for television drama have headlined the eighth Australian Bureau of Statistics Film, Television and Digital Games survey - the first since 2015/16.