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Nearly 30 projects will share in $975,000 of story development funding from Screen Australia, including a television series inspired by the 1999 film Two Hands from director Gregor Jordan, and a family feature film from the producers of Bluey.

The 28 recipients for the final round of development funding in the 2020/21 financial year comprise 12 feature films, 13 television dramas, and three online projects.

Screen Australia head of development Nerida Moore said there was no shortage of variety across the projects.

“Screen Australia is really proud to be supporting this impressive mix of projects,” she said.

“This includes fresh genre-bending comedies Home and Our Haunt, and beautiful romantic drama 10 Moments that will bring together 10 chapters from a great team of exciting creative voices.

“It’s also wonderful to support more children’s content with Big Serious Studios’ Goo Zoo set to invite children into the world of microbiology as part of the company’s aims to...

Catriona McKenzie (Photo: James Croucher/The Australian) and Carolyn Johnson.

Producer Carolyn Johnson and director Catriona McKenzie are the inaugural recipients of the South Australian Film Corporation’s (Safc) Doing It Differently development initiative for their screen adaptation of Patricia Cornelius’ play, Love.

The Doing It Differently initiative was introduced to encourage innovation in film production methods, especially the development of family-friendly approaches that support parents and carers working in the screen industry.

The initiative was one of a range of responses by the Safc to the findings of the Raising Films Australia survey which highlighted the challenges of progressing in the screen industry while being a parent or carer. It is intended to develop projects and ultimately provide production investment. An inspiration for this was Closer Productions’ 52 Tuesdays, which shot every Tuesday for a whole year while the team continued working on other projects during the week.

Johnson and...

Catriona McKenzie.

Catriona McKenzie launched her production company Dark Horse last month in part because she feels she’s now in a position to give practitioners from diverse backgrounds a leg up in their careers.

McKenzie has worked extensively as director, including feature film Satellite Boy, which she also wrote and produced, and on series such as Tidelands, Harrow, The Warriors, Dance Academy, The Circuit, Redfern Now and The Gods of Wheat Street, as well ABC iview’s Kiki and Kitty and Wrong Kind Of Black.

She is also the first Indigenous Australian woman to direct series television in the Us, having recently worked on Shadowhunters for Freeform, and is a member of the Directors Guild of America.

While McKenzie already has several projects on her slate, Dark Horse won’t just be a vehicle for her own work. Rather, she tells If she feels she’s now at stage...

A new Australian Writers' Guild report has revealed a decline in the use of Australian plays and plays by women compared with 2015.

The National Voice 2016 survey analysed the 95 main-stage shows in the 2016 seasons of Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South Australia, and Black Swan. Also included are Belvoir, Malthouse, The Ensemble, Griffin and La Boite.

Half are by an Australian writer, with an additional six works co-devised original works where no writer is specifically credited, bringing the number of new works by Australian writers or devisors to 56 per cent. Of these 53 works, 34 are original works and 19 are adaptations.

The Awg says these figures demonstrate a sharp decline in the programming of work by Australian writers in 2016, compared to 2015 when 63 per cent of shows were by Australian writers.

On the issue of gender parity: 2016 reveals an increase in the disparity between the programming of male-authored and female-authored work.

Andrew Anastasios and Andrew Knight.s The Water Diviner won the top prize and the gong for best original feature at the 2015 Awgie Awards.

It was the first time a feature collected the Australian Writers' Guild's Major Award and the gong for original feature since 2012 when Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson won with The Sapphires.

The prize for feature film adaptation was shared by Brendan Cowell for Scarlett Productions'. Ruben Guthrie and Tommy Murphy for Matchbox Pictures' Holding the Man.

Matchbox and Full Clip.s Deadline Gallipoli was named best original TV miniseries, acknowledging the work of writers Jacquelin Perske (also script producer), Stuart Beattie, Shaun Grant and Cate Shortland.

FremantleMedia.s Wentworth Season 3, Episode 3 The Governor.s Pleasure by Stuart Page shared the TV series award with Endemol Australia.s Offspring Episode 511 by Michael Lucas. Jan Sardi and Mac Gudgeon took the award for best miniseries adaptation for...

Nine features have been nominated for this year's Awgie Awards for performance writing.

Eight telemovies and miniseries are in contention. The Australian Writers. Guild says nominations in the 25 categories for the 48th Annual Awgie Awards reflect the abundance of outstanding work currently being produced in Australia. Nominees for best original telemovie are Steven McGregor for Redfern Now: Promise Me and Katherine Thomson for House of Hancock, while Christopher Lee.s Gallipoli and Jan Sardi and Mac Gudgeon.s The Secret River contend for best adaptation in a television miniseries. There are four nominees for original television mini-series: The Principal by Alice Addison and Kristen Dunphy; The Kettering Incident by Vicki Madden, Andrew Knight, Cate Shortland and Louise Fox; Deadline Gallipoli by Jacquelin Perske, Stuart Beattie, Shaun Grant and Cate Shortland; and Love Child: Series 2 from Tim Pye, Cathryn Strickland, Chris McCourt, Jane Allen and Tamara Asmar. In the categories...

The first winners of the newly renamed Kit Denton Disfellowship, previously the Kit Denton Fellowship, have been named as Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan whose writing credits have included Big Bite, Hamish & Andy and The Mansion.

The announcement was made at tonight’s Australian Writers Guild Awgie Awards held in Sydney.

Other winners included The Secret Life Of Us writer Kris Mrksa who picked up the Foxtel Fellowship, Chris Lilley who was recognised for his contribution to comedy and films Snow Town and Burning Man.

The Awgie winners:

2011 Kit Denton Fellowship

ForCourage and Excellence in Performance Writing

Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan

2011 Foxtel Fellowship

Fellowship awarded in recognition of a significant body of work in television.

Kris Mrksa

2011 Richard Lane Award

For Outstanding Service and Dedication to the Australian Writers’ Guild

Ian David

2011 Dorothy Crawford Award

For Outstanding Contribution to the Profession

Currency Press

2011 Fred Parsons Award

For Outstanding Contribution...

Screen Nsw has announced the 2011 participants for the script development workshop Aurora: Dust, Dog Eat Dog, On the Jellicoe Road, Falls Creek and One Hundred and Fifteen.

The selected filmmakers include a new project from Melena Marchetta (writer, Looking for Alibrandi), Michael Robertson (producer, Black Water/Road Train/The Reef) and the debut of editor Veronika Jenet as a producer.

The 2011 edition of Aurora includes a project from South Australia. The advisors will be Us producer Anne Carey (The American, Towelhead and The Savages); writer Andrew Bovell ( Lantana, Blessed, Head On and Edge of Darkness; producer/director/writer Jocelyn Moorhouse (How to Make an American Quilt, Peter Pan, A Thousand Acres, Proof and Muriel’s Wedding); and British producer Olivia Stewart (Brassed Off and Velvet Goldmine).

Former Aurora projects include Animal Kingdom, Somersault, Little Fish, Black Balloon, Prime Mover and Accidents Happen, and the upcoming Burning Man and Say Nothing.

Australian playwright Andrew Bovell recognizes that there may be a competitive factor lurking beneath Australia's theatre industry's struggle to transcend boundaries on the international stage. In a talk with Variety, he explains the struggles and rewards of being part of that "other" culturally rich English-speaking region and what it means to be recognized by his counterparts in New York and the U.K.

In an excerpt from the Variety report, Buvell explains "We write in the same language, so we're competing...I would imagine the U.K. has the richest writing culture in the English-speaking world. So why do an Australian play when there are so many writers here? But when theaters recognize something of value -- and this is the same in New York -- they immediately find a place for it."

The "value" that Bovell alludes to is easily be applied to his own critically acclaimed work -...