Screen Australia provides $3.4m enterprise funding to 36 prodcos and individuals
Funding body Screen Australia has awarded A$5.2m (US$3.4m) under its Enterprise Business Programme to bolster 18 companies and provide 18 individual placement opportunities.
Grainne Brunsdon
The scheme sees Screen Australia provide producers with money to launch, change or grow their businesses.
Recipients this year include regional New South Wales producer Magpie Pictures, newly launched female-focused, showrunner-led producer Lantern Pictures, observational doc specialist Ten4 Media based in the Northern Territory and Fremantle-backed Artemis Media.
The Enterprise Business Programme has been running since 2009 and has so far invested A$50m to support more than 133 screen businesses and 136 individual creators.
The Enterprise People component of the funding directly supports the careers of emerging and developing content creators via placements to help them develop their screen careers.
The latest screen practitioners selected include Kacie Anning, who will undertake a six-month placement with US company Paper Planes; Shelly Lauman, placed with Easy Tiger Productions (Territory, Colin From Accounts); and Nadia Townsend, who will work with Aquarius Films (Lion, Love Me).
Screen Australia’s First Nations Department has invested A$1m in the programme supporting four First Nations businesses, Djali House, Lone Star Company, No Coincidence Media and Pandamonium Films, and three practitioners: Travis Akbar, Isaac Cohen Lindsay and Joshua Yasserie.
Grainne Brunsdon, Screen Australia’s chief operating officer, said: “We are committed to helping create sustainable businesses. We’re thrilled to support such a diverse range of businesses from across Australia and placements that will provide crucial upskilling for local practitioners as they develop their careers here and all over the world.”
The other companies receiving Enterprise Business funding this year are Factor 30 Films, indiVisual Films International, Kapwa, Mad Ones Films, New Mac, Never/Sleep Pictures, Shop 15 Productions (Slag Productions), Thousand Mile Productions, Walking Fish Productions and Wild Pacific Media.
In related news, Screen Australia has appointed screen agency executive and producer Tania Chambers to its board for a three-year term.
Chambers was previously chief executive of funding agencies Screen NSW and Screenwest and in recent years has been a producer and executive producer at Feisty Dame Productions, creating film and TV series including Invisible Boys, Kill Me Three Times and How to Please a Woman, the documentary Making Waves and children’s series Itch.
Screen Australia’s other board member are Michael Ebeid (chair), Megan Brownlow (deputy chair), Marta Dusseldorp, Sacha Horler, Deborah Mailman, Nicholas Pickard and Pallavi Sharda. Chambers replaces outgoing member Helen Leake, whose term finished on June 26.
