A second film from Soft Fruit creative team Christina Andreef and Helen Bowden, and yet another from one of the country's most experienced producers, Matt Carroll, are two of the four projects chosen for the second intensive Aurora script development workshop.

Bill Forsyth, who wrote and directed Scottish film Local Hero, and The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy, have accepted invitations to lend their expertise to the initiative and will be in Australia in the second week of April for phase one, a week-long residential workshop.

The four selected scripts are:

Cut Snake, writer Blake Ayshford, producer/director Nicholas Parsons.. The relationship of the two men jailed for the real-life firebombing of the Whisky Au Go Go Nightclub in Brisbane in the 1970s.

Shiver, writer/director Christina Andreef, producer Helen Bowden.. Sex and death on an Australian base in Antarctica, adapted from a novel by Nikki Gemmell.

Ice, writer/director Sofya Gollan, producer Matt Carroll. Four country girls vie for the attention of an ice sculptor in town for a wedding.

Highway Toll, writer Raymond Devitt, producer John Cruthers, director Marcus Gale. A late-night robbery goes like clockwork but the getaway car crashes. The boss is dead but three survive.

Script hot housing has now taken hold in Australia but it was the New South Wales Film and Television Office (FTO) that lead the way with the first Aurora last year The inaugural scheme involved local advisers: Jan Chapman, producer of The Piano and Babe director/co-writer Chris Noonan, as well as patron Jane Campion - all of whom remain on board this year.

The first Aurora initiative lead to the introduction of a new feature film writers scheme for which the FTO announced the recipients last week.

Chosen from 175 applications were the scripts Hope by Damien Power, In Human by Matthew Murphy, Karaoke Killers by Rob Reynolds and The Feeder by Tara Wilkinson.