13 film, TV & online Western Australian projects receive scripted development funding
Thirteen projects have received development support through Screenwest’s second round of Scripted Development Investment funding for the 2021-22 financial year.
The successful projects include a coming of age musical-comedy feature, an Indigenous TV series about two sisters working as paranormal investigators, and a queer Pirate TikTok series.
“We were impressed by the diverse range of applications submitted in this round. Congratulations to the successful filmmaking teams behind these thirteen distinctive projects; we look forward to seeing these concepts and scripts develop to their full potential.” said Martha Coleman, Screenwest Head of Creative: Content & Industry Development.
The Scripted Development Investment Fund provides concept development (Stage One) and project development (Stage Two) funding to emerging and experienced Western Australian practitioners who are creating scripted content for all delivery platforms (including theatrical).
Scripted Development Investment Funding Recipients
STAGE ONE
The Summer of our Lives
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Banshee Hills
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Aaron McCann
- Director: Robert Woods
- Writer: Tyler Jacob Jones
Logline: It’s E.T meets Carrie – with songs! Based on the award-winning stage musical of the same name the story follows a grief-stricken young girl who befriends a mysterious alien while on summer holiday and gains destructive powers in the process.
I’d Rather Eat Cake
- Format: 6 x 10 minute online series
- Production Company: Blackwood River Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Sophia Armstrong
- Writer: Tahlia Norrish
Logline: She thought she was unsexy. Turns out she’s asexy.
Amy the Pirate and the Quest for the Crystal Caves
- Format: 12 x 3 minute TikTok series
- Production Company: Blackwood River Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Sophia Armstrong
- Director: Mimi Helm
- Writers: Mimi Helm & Lata Periakarpan
Logline: On the run for impersonating a man, 18th century scam artist Amy falls prey to a curse; she must enlist the help of a ragtag group of pirates and find the fabled Crystal Caves or face certain death.
The Sinkings
- Format: 6 x 1 hour TV series
- Production Company: Factor 30 Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Melissa Kelly
- Writer: Natasha Pincus
Logline: The Sinkings is a story within a story, the portrayal of a figure from the margins of history embedded within a contemporary narrative of a mother’s guilt and grief.
A Haven for Strays
- Format: Feature film
- Key Creatives:
- Writer/Director: Alison James
Logline: A woman’s plans to adopt the baby of a troubled teen are thrown into turmoil when the infant’s biological grandmother intervenes; creating a tug of war between the three women.
Moodjar
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Rush Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Cody Greenwood
- Writer/Director: Karla Hart
Logline: After bringing home a branch of the Moodjar tree, a young Noongar girl connects with the spirits of the dead and unveils the truth behind her sister’s disappearance.
Spear and Musket
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Imagery Films
- Key Creatives:
- Writer/Director: Michael Bonner
Logline: Djaru is a young Aboriginal warrior on the path to becoming a man, but can his traditional ways survive what is coming?
Only Wanted
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Weerianna Street Media
- Key Creatives:
- Producers: Tyson Mowarin & Robyn Marais
- Director: Tyson Mowarin
- Writer: Tyson Mowarin & Robyn Marais
Logline: An outback love story set to music.
Pilli Sisters PI
- Format: 12 x 30 minute TV series
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Tasma Walton
- Writers: Tasma Walton, Jub Clerc, Kodie Bedford & Ursula Yovich
Logline: Two Indigenous sisters work as paranormal investigators, specialising in helping ghosts ‘crossover’, all the while debating community events, race politics, and the best gravy base for kangaroo stew.
STAGE TWO
Whale Shark Jack
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Cottesloe Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producers: Miranda Edmonds & Tim White
- Directors: Khrob Edmonds & Miranda Edmonds
- Writer: Kathryn Lefroy
Logline: A heart-warming story about family, friendship, and the natural world as a young girl comes to terms with the loss of her mother by embarking on a risky mission to save her best friend, a whale shark named Jack.
Practise
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: Big & Little Films
- Key Creatives:
- Producer: Michael McMahon
- Director: Michael Rowe
- Writer: Lincoln Vickery
- Line Producer: James Grandison
Logline: Fifteen-year-old Cal Grogan struggles with the pressure of his father’s expectations, his emerging sexuality and wrestling with his adolescent depression as the looming fear of an interscholastic jazz band competition gets closer and closer.
Paper Plane (working title)
- Format: Feature film
- Production Companies: Feisty Dame Productions & Process Media
- Key Creatives:
- Producers: Tania Chambers, Tim Perell & Gaby Dellal
- Director: Gaby Dellal
- Writers: Alex Rose and Anya Beyersdorf
Logline: Family, in the end, is hard to beat. Divorce, a love story.
How To Bee
- Format: Feature film
- Production Company: iGeneration Studios
- Key Creatives:
- Producers: Amanda Morrison, Lisa Hoppe, Abi Tabone & Heather Wilson
- Executive Producers: Amanda Morrison & Sara McFarlane
- Director: Christiaan Van Vuuren
- Writer: Lisa Hoppe
Logline: After The Great Famine, honeybees are all but extinct and the bravest and quickest children in the country are used as “Bees” to pollinate the fruit trees. A young girl is taken from her home on a farm to the city to work as a servant but, determined to become a “Bee”, escapes back home.
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T: +61 8 6169 2100
E: info@screenwest.com.au
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