The 45th annual Australian Writer’s Guild AWGIE Awards, held at Doltone House in Sydney, have honoured local productions including The Sapphires, Not Suitable for Children and The Slap.
Hosted by Roy and HG’s John Doyle, the event was attended by key industry figures and featured Australian writing talent from across film, theatre, television, radio and animation.
Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson work on The Sapphires earned them an AWGIE Award for Most Outstanding Script of 2012 and another for best Feature Film Adaption. Up-and-comer Michael Lucas also collected two awards, for an episode of the television show Offspring and in the Feature Film Original category for Not Suitable For Children.
The teams behind The Slap and The Straits won AWGIEs for Best Mini Series Adaption and Television Mini Series – Original respectively. Brides of Christ and The Leaving of Liverpool scribe Susan Smith cemented her place as a Australian scriptwriting icon with her AWGIE for Mabo in the Telemovie Original category.
Ian Simmons was on hand to collect two awards, one as head writer for Good News Week, which earned him a Fred Parsons Award for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Comedy, and another for Comedy – Sketch or Light Entertainment with his GNW team. Wilfred co-creator Adam Zwar and his team behind Lowdown won a Comedy – Situation or Narrative award for their episode One Fine Gay from the upcoming second series.
Graeme Koetsveld won the Richard Lane Award for Outstanding Service and Dedication to the Australian Writers’ Guild, and the Hector Crawford Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Craft in the Field of Script Editing.
The Monte Miller Award recognises quality unproduced scripts and was awarded to Michael Jones for his script Ashes in the Long Form category and to Nigel Karikari for his Short From script Love Hurts.
Television writer Kristen Dunphy was also awarded the 2012 Foxtel Fellowship – the $25,000 fellowship recognises significant contribution to the Australian cultural landscape made by television writing and is awarded to a writer who has created a script that is impressive in its craft, scope and impact.
AWG president and Academy Award-nominee Jan Sardi said: “This year, the 50-year anniversary of the Australian Writers’ Guild, has been the biggest AWGIEs to date with over 30 awards being presented. A mix of new talent, whose star is rising and more established writers that have received the recognition they rightly deserve.”
The full list of winners below:
Major Award
The Sapphires
Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson
Feature Film – Adaptation
The Sapphires
Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson
Feature Film – Original
Not Suitable For Children
Michael Lucas
Telemovie – Original
Mabo
Susan Smith
Television Mini Series – Original
The Straits
Blake Ayshford, Jaime Browne, Kristen Dunphy and Nicholas Parsons with Louis Nowra
Television Mini Series – Adaptation
The Slap
Emily Ballou, Alice Bell, Brendan Cowell and Kris Mrksa with Cate Shortland
Comedy – Sketch or Light Entertainment
Good News Week: The State of the Nation
Mat Blackwell, Dave Bloustien, Simon Dodd, Bruce Griffiths, Warwick Holt, Paul Livingston and Ian Simmons
Comedy – Situation or Narrative
Lowdown: One Fine Gay
Amanda Brotchie, Trudy Hellier and Adam Zwar.
Television – Serial
Home and Away: Episode 5391
Fiona Bozic
Television – Series
Offspring: Episode 206
Michael Lucas
Stage
Silent Disco
Lachlan Philpott
Community and Youth Theatre
The Sadness of Mister Saisson
Chris Thompson
Animation
Flea-Bitten! – Home Truths
Raymond Boseley
Interactive Media
SLiDE
Michelle Law, Anthony Mullins, Chris Somerville and Lucas Taylor
Short Film
Rarer Monsters
Shayne Armstrong and S. P. Krause
Children’s Television – P Classification
Guess How Much I Love You: Follow Me
David Evans
Children’s Television – C Classification
Dance Academy: The Second
Samantha Strauss
Children’s Theatre
Snow on Mars
Richard Tulloch with Kim Carpenter and Gale Edwards.
Radio – Original Broadcast
Random Red
Noëlle Janaczewska
Radio – Adaptation
Aurora’s Lament
Donna Abela
Documentary – Public Broadcast
The Curse of the Gothic Symphony
Anthony Mullins and Randall Wood
Documentary – Corporate and Training
Living The Values
Charles Hamlyn-Harris
2012 SPECIAL AWARDS
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 RICHARD LANE AWARD
For Outstanding Service and Dedication to the Australian Writers’ Guild
Graeme Koetsveld
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 DOROTHY CRAWFORD AWARD
For Outstanding Contribution to the Profession
Kim Williams AM
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 FRED PARSONS AWARD
For Outstanding Contribution to Australian Comedy
Ian Simmons
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 HECTOR CRAWFORD AWARD
Outstanding Contribution to the Craft in the Field of Script Editing
‘For an Outstanding Contribution to the Craft via a Body of Script Editing Work’
Graeme Koetsveld
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 MONTE MILLER AWARD – LONG FORM
Ashes
Michael Jones
Australian Writers’ Guild
2012 MONTE MILLER AWARD – SHORT FORM
Love Hurts
Nigel Karikari