Screenrights Announces $249,600 Funding For Seven Projects Supported By 2021 Cultural Fund
Screenrights has announced seven projects will be supported by the 2021 round of its annual Cultural Fund, to total $249,600 in funding for this year’s focus of ‘New Teams’. This is the fourth year of the Screenrights Cultural Fund, which was established in 2018.
“This year’s focus on New Teams attracted a strong round of high quality applications out of which seven projects have been approved with a rich diversity of participants and project aims,” said Screenrights Board Director and Cultural Fund Working Group Chair Geoffrey Atherden. “We're confident that this year’s grants will deliver rewarding and innovative outcomes for audiences and the screen industry in Australia and New Zealand.”
Sweetshop & Green will receive $50K for ‘The New Pasifika Creators Accelerator Program’, New Zealand’s first program designed to place talented emerging Pacific creatives living in New Zealand with high-profile, established Pacific-led production companies to provide on-the-ground training, mentorship, and opportunities for essential screen credits necessary to gain entrance into the industry.
Sharlene George, Co-Managing Director at Sweetshop & Green said, "Sweetshop & Green is honoured to collaborate with the key Pacific-led film production companies in Aotearoa: Tikilounge, Sunpix and Brown Sugar Apple Grunt. With the generous help of Screenrights and collectively as Team Moana, we are able to put into practice our Pacific values; collaborative working and sharing resources, ideas and finances in ways that will shine a spotlight on Pacific stories and culture in Aotearoa and beyond."
2021
Screenrights Cultural Fund recipients Team
Moana.
Pictured left to right: Kerry
Warkia (Brown Sugar Apple Grunt), Sharlene George (Sweetshop
& Green), Lisa Taouma (Tikilounge), Stephin Stehlin
(Sunpix).
Diversity Arts Australia will receive $25K for its capacity building program ‘Equity, Inclusion and the Screen Sector’, increasing understanding and confidence of small to medium screen based companies around engaging effectively with cultural and racial diversity. Back to Back Theatre will receive $20K to partner with screen industry leaders to share the outcomes of their internship program that saw people with disability employed and mentored in production roles during the creation of Shadow in 2020, with a view to creating models for increased employment opportunities for people with disability in the wider screen sector.
‘Stories From Another Australia’ is a talent and career development program from Co-Curious, which will receive $45.5K to address lack of cultural diversity in the screen industry by creating a network of support and potential collaborators as well as the tools to establish and sustain a screenwriting career. ‘The Feast’ will see Midnight Feast receive $49.1K for an innovative training program teaming 20 artists with physical and intellectual disabilities with creatives from Jungle Entertainment and The Corinthian Food Store to learn about collaborative writing, development, pitching, pathways to audience, casting, directing and editing on a budget. Media Farm’s ‘Impact Team Labs’ brings together participants from different specialisations – producers and storytellers with researchers and subject matter experts – to form new teams to tackle the problems of climate crisis and inequality, diversity and inclusion. The Lab will receive $30K funding to form transdisciplinary teams addressing mutual areas of concern.
Following on from this year’s inaugural Platform initiative, For Film’s Sake will receive $30K funding for ‘Platform 2022’, a three-day workshop intensive to be staged with Sydney Film Festival to provide expert skill development that bridges the gap between creative and commercial elements of screen production in the global market. The workshop will support up to 10 participants with an active screen project in development, and culminate in a public pitch to international mentors and financiers.
Applications were assessed by a panel of professionals with both local and international expertise in screen, media and education.
ABOUT THE SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS
Sweetshop &
Green
Activity: ‘The New
Pasifika Creators Accelerator Program’ is New Zealand's
first program designed to place talented emerging Pacific
creatives living in New Zealand with high-profile,
established Pacific-led production companies to provide
on-the-ground training, mentorship, networking and skills
development. The program has been designed by Team Moana, a
new Pacific-led collective of four high-profile production
companies. The goal of the collective is to create a
pipeline of new Pacific talent by providing sought after
opportunities that will help provide essential credits
necessary to gain entrance into the industry. The program
has been devised as an annual program for four highly
talented emerging Pacific
creatives.
Location: New
Zealand
Amount funded:
$50,000
Diversity Arts
Australia
Activity: ‘Equity,
Inclusion and the Screen Sector’ is a capacity building
program to increase understanding and confidence of the
small to medium screen based companies around engaging
effectively with cultural and racial diversity – including
the persistence of systemic barriers in practices and
building culturally safe practices. The program is focused
on practical and actionable strategies to make change, from
recruitment and leadership to programming and audience
development. The focus of the program is on building
capacities to work with culturally and linguistically
diverse, migrant, POC and refugee communities who are
underrepresented in the screen industry, and build knowledge
and connections with these
communities.
Location:
Australia
Amount funded:
$25,000
Back to Back
Theatre
Activity: Back to Back
Theatre will partner with screen industry leaders to share
the outcomes of their internship program that saw people
with disability employed and mentored in production roles
during the creation of Shadow in 2020, with a view to
creating a model(s) for increased employment opportunities
for people with disability in the wider screen sector. With
Deakin University, Back to Back conducted comprehensive
research and evaluation of the internship program,
documenting actual and potential long-term economic benefits
and social impacts for individuals with a disability, their
capacity to be engaged with mainstream screen services and
within the broader community. This project will see Back to
Back’s research form innovative partnerships with sectors
of the screen industry, developing concrete strategies to
assist these partners to explore strength-based
opportunities and approaches to disability
employment.
Location: Australia
(NSW)
Amount funded:
$20,000
Co-Curious
Activity:
‘Stories From Another Australia’ is a talent and career
development program that aims to address issues around the
lack of cultural diversity in the screen industry through a
tailored skills development program designed to bring
together emerging CaLD screenwriters and experienced
industry practitioners. The program will create a network of
support and potential collaborators. It will also provide
participants with the tools to unlock four key enablers
essential in establishing and sustaining a screenwriting
career.
Location: Australia (NSW &
VIC)
Amount funded:
$45,500
Midnight
Feast
Activity: ‘The Feast'
is an innovative training program teaming 20 artists with
physical and intellectual disabilities with creatives from
Jungle Entertainment and The Corinthian Food Store to learn
about collaborative writing, development, pitching, pathways
to audience, casting, directing and editing on a budget.
Over one year, artists from Midnight Feast will be
encouraged to work with new collaborators, to develop
skills, and to deepen their connections in the film
industry. At the culmination of the program, each artist
will have a chance to pitch a project to executives from
Jungle Entertainment and The Corinthian Food Store, and to
receive feedback. A documentary crew will capture the work
of the artists from start to finish. This program is about
giving artists agency over their own work, as well as a
place at the table with well-connected
partners.
Location: Australia (NSW &
VIC)
Amount funded:
$49,100
Media
Farm
Activity: ‘Impact Teams
Lab’ is a new initiative that brings together participants
from three different groups or categories – producers and
storytellers, researchers and subject matter experts, and
people with lived experience – to form new teams to tackle
two important problems we face: Climate crisis and
Inequality, Diversity and Inclusion. Impact Teams Lab
introduces these participants to one another and helps them
form transdisciplinary teams over mutual areas of concern.
Then, over a 6-week period, the teams are guided on how to
work together to develop a screen content project that will
make a measurable impact. At the end of this period, lab
participants will pitch their projects and impact
measurement tools to networks, screen agencies and to impact
investors for feedback and development
funding.
Location: Australia
(NSW)
Amount funded:
$30,000
For Film’s
Sake
Activity: Platform 2022 is
a three-day workshop intensive that follows this year’s
first ever Platform, to be staged with Sydney Film Festival
to provide expert skill development that bridges the gap
between creative and commercial elements of screen
production in the global market. The workshop will support
up to 10 participants with an active screen project in
development, and culminate in a public pitch to
international mentors and
financiers.
Location: Australia
(NSW)
Amount funded:
$30,000