Screenrights Announces $175k Funding for Screen Initiatives

Screenrights Announces $175k Funding for Four Screen Initiatives

Projects Supported through 2019 Cultural Fund

Māoriland Charitable Trust to receive $50,000
for Through Our Lens Rangitahi Workshop

Thursday 29 August, 2019- Screenrights has announced four projects to be funded in the second year of its annual Cultural Fund. The Fund was established in 2018 to support innovative projects that foster the creation and appreciation of screen content in Australia and New Zealand.

Three recipients will each receive $50,000: Light Sound Art Film, to support The Staging Post Education Project, a schools workshop program, website, and social media program that builds on 2017’s The Staging Post documentary to facilitate understanding and dialogue between Australian students and refugees living in transit in Indonesia; Documentary Australia Foundation for DocAccess, an online, interactive portal that will provide educational resources to filmmakers, communities and individuals to create social impact and change; and New Zealand group Māoriland Charitable Trust, to support Through Our Lens, an indigenous youth peer-to-peer workshop initiative supporting collaboration and strong networks for youth Māori filmmakers and fostering future leaders and diverse screen voices.

Film Outreach Australia will receive $25,000 towards delivering strategies and tools to regional venues and presenters that will help them to develop new screen audiences for a diverse range of screening programs and film festivals.

“We are delighted to be able to support a range of innovative initiatives again this year. The four recipients of the Cultural Fund are doing incredible work to facilitate the telling of impactful stories by and for diverse communities,” said Screenrights CEO James Dickinson. “These initiatives also represent creative approaches to broadening access to screen stories for a diversity of audiences.”

Applications were assessed by a panel of professionals with local and international expertise in the screen industry and in education.

For its second year of the Cultural Fund, Screenrights continued its focus on the connection between education and screen content.

The recipients shared their reactions to the news:

“Six years ago, I drove up the hill to ‘meet a refugee’ and I have learnt so much since that time. I love that The Staging Post film, Q&A’s and workshops offer Australians an opportunity to ask many of the same questions I had on that first visit,” said Jolyon Hoff. “Thanks to the Screenrights Cultural Grant I The Staging Post project is going to be able to extend this opportunity to many more Australian schools, and to develop an ongoing and sustainable program of education, connection and understanding.”

Speaking for Maoriland Charitable Trust, Rangatahi Manager Madeleine de Young said, “Ma te huruhuru ka rere ngā manu – with this funding we really are being given the feathers (huruhuru) to fly!”

“We are absolutely thrilled to be awarded as a 2019 Screenrights Cultural Fund recipient. Regional Australians are second-class citizens when it comes to accessing quality independent cinema on the big screen,” said David Horsley of Film Outreach Australia. “The Screenrights Cultural Fund will help us educate venue staff all around Regional Australia on how to develop new screen audiences in their local communities, based on what we do ourselves with the Screenwave International Film Festival on the Coffs Coast.”

Documentary Australia Foundation’s Clara Williams Roldan said, “This support will allow us to develop and launch DocAccess, our innovative and interactive portal that will drive social change through storytelling. Over the past decade, we have seen how stories can build understanding and bring communities together. We work closely with filmmakers, educators and passionate people to use film to create impact. DocAccess will allow us to scale up this work, bring a suite of tools to all of Australia. We look forward to developing DocAccess with the support of Screenrights and our partners Pro Bono Australia and the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.”

________________________________________

About Screenrights

Screenrights is a non-profit member organisation that provides rights and royalty management services to the screen industry. Screenrights facilitates access to screen content through simple licensing solutions for teachers in education, administrators in government, and home viewers with subscription TV – and provides royalty payments to rightsholders for the programs audiences love. Screenrights is a leader in the audiovisual industries, forging dynamic connections between screen industry and screen audiences.

More info: https://www.screenrights.org/about-us/media-information/

About Māoriland and Through Our Lens

Māoriland Film Festival was founded in 2014 to celebrate Indigenous voices and storytelling in film and to uplift the perspectives and stories of Indigenous peoples. It is held in the Kāpiti Coast community of Ōtaki.

Over the past six years, the festival has grown to be the largest presenter of Indigenous screen content in the Southern Hemisphere, with a year-round programme of events that include; industry focussed events, emerging technology (VR/AR/XR), lecture series – NATIVE Minds, sound and stage performances, a full visual arts programme – Toi Matarau and more.

These activities were enabled through the establishment of the Māoriland Hub – Ōtaki’s largest building – purchased in 2017 by the Māoriland Charitable Trust – an independent Māori non-profit social enterprise mandated by Ngā Hapū o Ōtaki – the five sub-tribes of Ōtaki (NZ Charities Commission: CC53677). Māoriland exists for the social, economic and educational success of its community in Otaki through connection to the wider world of Indigenous creativity and innovation.

With the help of seed funding from UNESCO the Trust initiated the Through Our Lens Māori youth film leadership initiative in 2017. The initiative aims to grow the confidence, skills and networks of rangatahi filmmakers by having them design and lead filmmaking workshops with other youth outside of New Zealand. By taking them outside of their own peer group they have the opportunity to be unrestricted; to learn about other cultures and to share their own; to explore their limitless potential.

The inaugural Through Our Lens selected 14 rangatahi filmmakers aged 13 - 24 to travel to Samoa, Hawai’i, Rarotonga and Tahiti to lead filmmaking workshops for Indigenous youth. The rangatahi film leaders worked with forty-seven other youth in these four countries and together they created nine short films. Stories of identity, the effects of colonisation, suicide, bullying and other challenges they were facing within their communities. These workshops were transformational for our rangatahi filmmakers. They discovered new ways of communicating and leading especially in Tahiti where French was the language of the youth they were collaborating with. They were able to share culture and create new connections and future opportunities.

"Through Our Lens" premiered at Māoriland Film Festival March 2018 to much acclaim from audiences, filmmakers, educators and international film festival directors. Since then six of the 14 TOL rangatahi are now working in the film industry. Five have been involved in award winning short and feature films. In late 2018 Māoriland Charitable Trust launched a nationwide callout for rangatahi to apply to participate in Through Our Lens II. Applications were received from all over Aotearoa with 22 young people selected to attend a finalists workshop at the Māoriland Hub in Ō taki. During this workshop, participants were challenged as collaborators, storytellers and leaders and they made short films in just 3 hours. All 22 were chosen for their leadership qualities, their passion for screen storytelling and an ability to share both their passion and skills with their peers. The first of these rangatahi travelled to the Cook Islands and Aitutaki at the end of 2018. They worked with 60 youth in three workshops and created five short films they have since screened at Māoriland Film Festival 2019, at Waitangi Day Wellington and in the Cook Islands.

TOL II is to continue in 2019. Invitations have been received to return to Samoa and Hawaii, and to travel to the Northern Hemisphere indigenous nations of Norway, Greenland and Canada. Screenrights Cultural Fund 2

Funding from the Screenrights Cultural Fund will enable this to occur but will also help to make the Through Our Lens initiative sustainable in 2020 and 2021.

Download Through Our Lens one pager

ends

© Scoop Media