A cross section of emerging filmmakers, professional practitioners and their supporters descended upon His Majesty’s Theatre on Friday 23rd March for the 20th Western Australian Screen Awards presented by the Film and Television Institute.
Funding is limited in the screen industry and generally funded through ScreenWest and Lotterywest in our state. Those in WA also have to battle hard to obtain the limited funding pools available nationally. However the number of thankyou speeches bemoaning film funding in the west belied the quality of productions on show with WA production levels at an all time high especially in the documentary and children’s television areas. This year will see three children’s series released entitled, Dogstar, Lockie Leonard’ and the Sleepover Club. The latter was produced by Southern Star Entertainment and commissioned by the Nine Network and Nickelodeon UK and won three out of the six Outstanding Achievement Industry Awards in the areas of Drama Direction, Editing and Visual FX on the night.
Best Experimental Production went to Michelle Glaser for her video work featuring live action and animation, The Diabolical Dr Pancoast’. This piece was shown last year in September at the Spectrum Project Space and also featured in this year’s adultshop.com Erotic Art Prize in partnership with ARTRAGE, which just finished at the Bakery. I’m lucky enough to have viewed the work, which, as stated on the Spectrum website, ‘uses a pastiche of 20th century horror tropes borrowed from silent cinema, phantasmagoria, conjurers, spiritualism and literature of the period to scrutinize the artifice of creativity and the vanity that underpins all human endeavour. Join The Diabolical Dr Pancoast on his journey to the underworld. Where a curiosity shop is the portal to this nether region. Unlike other shops, the buyer cannot choose. Your destiny chooses you. And the price is, of course, your soul.’ I enjoyed being amused by the risque and naughtiness experienced on my hedonistic ride through the underworld!
The Outstanding Achievement for Documentary Direction went to Saving Andrew Mallard’ produced by Artemis International, Michael Muntz, and screened on the ABC, with the award for Outstanding Achievement for Documentary Production going to Bom Bali by Electric Pictures and screened on the Channel 10 Network.
Other local quality productions to be screened this year include the adult drama series The Circuit and Marx and Venus. I have also heard great things about the ‘Eco House Challenge’ by Prospero Productions, which starts screening on SBS for six weeks from Wednesday 11 April. It takes two families and removes everything they take for granted (just like you and I) and challenges them to live a cleaner and greener existence by removing water, power, transport and waste removal – tune in!
I understand the awards ceremony was a great night, a glitzy and glamourous celebration of the talent we have here in the West – with all the girls dressed as if for the Oscars and the boys in their boho best. The after parties looked like they were going to be hot and I’m sure there was more than one sore head in the morning with those celebrating and enjoying the night’s festivities.
