Australian film sector boosted by drive to find diverse voices

Film Victoria received around 200 applications for eight projects to be developed by writers and directors from underrepresented backgrounds as part of its Originate programme last year. But rather than send out more than 190 reject notes, the Melbourne-based agency decided to extend its support to everyone. All were invited to be part of a series of online sessions held over three weeks, focused on making films with limited resources. “It was a way of encouraging and motivating people, and giving them learnings and contacts, rather than leaving them disappointed they didn’t crack the eight,” says Film Victoria’s chief executive Caroline Pitcher.

A one-week follow-up lab for the selected eight project teams was held, and three months of bespoke development will occur this year once those eight are whittled down to three. Film Victoria will principally fund just one film chosen for production budgeted at around $1.1m (a$1.5m) — but the hope is the other projects will find a way forward.

Robert Connolly’s Arenamedia will executive produce the project and distribute theatrically via sister sales and financing arm North South East West; multicultural broadcaster SBS has Australian TV rights. UK-based script expert Angeli Macfarlane is also involved.

The decision to cater to all the Originate applicants is part of Film Victoria’s ambition to increase the overall output of all Australian content. Supporting new and diverse voices makes good sense as part of that overall strategy, says Pitcher.

“Traditional funding mechanisms have been on the basis of mid to advanced career writers, producers and directors,” she says. “With the global expansion of content, there is a need to rapidly advance diverse and emerging talent. If we don’t radically increase what’s going down the production pipeline, we won’t grow at the same pace as the rest of the world and might get lost in the noise.”

Diverse and inclusive

Originate is one of a burgeoning number of Australian programmes dedicated to supporting fresh voices. In South Australia, the low-budget skills scheme Film Lab: New Voices has just greenlit its debut feature, Matt Vesely’s Monolith, with a view to a premiere at Adelaide Film Festival in October. Monolith is one of three projects selected and each must have at least one key creative who is female, First Nations, culturally or linguistically diverse, deaf or disabled, LGBTQ+, or from a regional or remote area.

The Australian screen sector uses the terminology ‘diverse and inclusive’ to describe the drive to accurately reflect contemporary society in the people working in front of and behind the camera and in the stories themselves. According to the Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network based on the 2016 census, more than a quarter of the Australian population was born overseas, and just under half were children of overseas-­born parents. Almost a fifth identify as living with a disability. Around a third live outside major cities. And just over one in 10 identify as having a non-‘straight’ sexuality or gender identity.

Internships and other forms of fast-tracking initiatives aimed at making the industry more inclusive are in place in companies and organisations up and down the country. Most of the government screen agencies have in-house specialists and/or advisory committees, and inclusivity is always a consideration behind the principal funding programmes.

However, those in the gatekeeper roles remain predominantly white and middle class.

Screen Australia is the biggest agency, with an annual budget of around $30.5m (a$42m) to invest each year in local features and TV drama. Sally Caplan, who was head of production at the agency until she stepped down in January, says that when she joined from the UK eight years ago there was very little diversity in the feature slates of either country.

“There is a lot of unconscious bias against people who don’t have privilege, don’t go to posh film schools, don’t have networks,” she suggests.

Under Caplan, Screen Australia backed the Sundance title You Won’t Be Alone, directed by the Macedonia-­born Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski and produced by Causeway Films, and the agency’s slate of films nearing completion is alight with diversity and difference. They include Blaze, about a teenager who unleashes the wrath of her imaginary dragon, directed by the artist Del Kathryn Barton, and written with Black Arab Australian Huna Amweero. France’s mk2 Films is handling international rights.

Slovenia-born writer/director Sara Kern’s Moja Vesna is an immigrant family story set in Melbourne, while Russia-born writer/director Alena Lodkina’s second film Petrol is about a film student and a performance artist whose lives become entwined. Arenafilm is producing and Maze Film Sales has international rights.

There are several production companies that specialise in working with underrepresented groups. They include Sweetshop & Green, which produced Moja Vesna, and community arts organisation Co-Curious. The latter co-produced anthology film Here Out West, which opened Sydney Film Festival in 2021. Co‑Curious runs a development programme aimed at connecting new voices and stories from the diverse western Sydney neighbourhoods.

Caplan underlines the need to implement initiatives that will have a long-term impact, citing the three-year emerging writers’ incubator as an example. Driven by Screen Australia and broadcaster SBS, it involves six state and territory agencies. Each person is either Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander, culturally or linguistically diverse, living with a disability, living in regional or remote Australia, are female or trans/gender diverse, or identify as LGBTQ+.

The annual intake of six will each spend a year working across the drama slate of either Bunya, Goalpost, Ludo, Closer, Komixx and Tony Ayres Productions. The Australian Writers’ Guild will provide training during this time. It will probably skew towards television because of the orientation of the companies involved. Caplan says it is important to educate the executives as well as the writers.

“It was compulsory for all of [the companies] to do cultural safety training,” Caplan explains. “When there’s one diverse person in a writers’ room and everyone else is white, it can put a lot of pressure on that person.”

Caplan’s mantle will now be taken up by Grainne Brunsdon, who will step into the newly named head of content role at Screen Australia from March. UK-born Caplan plans to stay in Australia but her next move is not yet known.

“It’s still far from perfect [in Australia] in terms of there being fair representation of historically excluded communities — and women too — but it’s become much more of a touch point for us,” says Caplan, as she moves on from the most influential role in Australian drama funding. “You can’t keep regurgitating the same stories and a lot of the most interesting are diverse.”

• Grainne Brunsdon named head of content at Screen Australia