Academic leader, screenwriter and creativity advocate Dr Nell Greenwood is announced as AFTRS CEO by Chair Russel Howcroft. Since 2013, Dr Greenwood has held senior roles at AFTRS including Head of Screenwriting, Course Leader Masters, Head of Programs and Director of Curriculum & Student Registrar.
Read the full press release here.
VR pioneer and multi-faceted artist Lynette Wallworth is selected as AFTRS’ inaugural Artist-in-Residence.
The new program invites talented Australian storytellers to spend a semester at the School and have the space, support and facilities to reflect on and test their craft, while also giving students the opportunity to seek mentorship, ask questions and learn from through a weekly ‘open door’.
Wallworth, an Emmy and AACTA award-winning Australian artist/filmmaker, undertakes a research project during the residency to explore the creative potential of audio narratives.
Production company Bus Stop Films, co-founded by AFTRS alumni Genevieve Clay-Smith, partners with AFTRS to deliver two year-long paid internships for young adults living with disability.
Bus Stop Films has delivered its Accessible Film Studies Program and award-winning Inclusion in Action training on campus at AFTRS since 2016. AFTRS also provides classroom and studio space to support the Program’s inclusively made films. Clay-Smith was part of the 2014 Graduate Certificate in Screenwriting Fundamentals cohort, and founded Bus Stop Films in 2009 with Eleanor Winkler.
AFTRS launches the Digital Futures Summit series, which brings together Australian and international industry leaders with educators and government to talk about collaborating, adapting and capitalising on technological changes for the betterment of the screen and broadcast industries.
The first summit in the series, Digital Futures Summit: Virtual Production, is held online on 14 October 2021. The second series takes place in February 2022, and the third, which runs in September 2023, focuses on audio and the intersection of sound, radio, and podcasting in the age of digital disruption.
The inaugural Pariya Taherzadeh Radio and Podcasting Scholarship opens for applicants. This annual scholarship is generously made possible by Taherzadeh, who is a multi-award winning podcast producer, an AFTRS alumna from the 2018 Graduate Diploma in Radio, the 2018 recipient of the AFTRS/ABC Selwyn Speight Diversity Scholarship, and a current guest lecturer and mentor to students in AFTRS’ Graduate Diploma in Radio and Podcasting and Master of Arts Screen: Documentary programs.
Taherzadeh’s 2021 audio feature Jaleh’s Drive For Freedom was commissioned by the ABC Radio Days Like These program and won a Gold prize at the 2022 New York Radio Festival Awards and two Honouree awards at the 2022 Annual Webby Awards. Her audio documentary Escape From Iran also won two prizes at the 2020 NY Festival Radio Awards.
Her extensive audio experience also includes executive producing for the Netflix podcast, Lived It, Finder.com’s podcast Two Broke Chicks and Queensland University of Technology podcast Future Law Podcast, producing Mamamia’s parenting podcast This Glorious Mess, and sound designing for The Trap, to name a few.
On 21 February, AFTRS commences a year of celebrations to mark 50 years since its establishment in 1973, starting with a morning that brought together the inaugural class of 1973 and the incoming students of 2023. Other events include a showcase in October featuring restored short films from some of the School’s most celebrated alumni, and a 50th anniversary reception in November.
Arts Minister Tony Burke’s video address praised AFTRS technicians and storytellers as “essential workers,” whose contributions are vital to Australian culture: “AFTRS are the long line of credits at the end of every show… all the different technical skills that allow the creativity and storytelling of Australians to reach the rest of the nation and to reach the rest of the world.”
A 1997 graduate of Master of Arts (Film & Television) Design, Melinda Doring takes home the AACTA Award for Best Production Design in Television for her work on The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
It marks Doring’s fifth AACTA for production design work, including wins for television series The Newsreader, features The Sapphires and Eye of the Storm, and miniseries Stateless – for which she also won the 2021 APDG Award for Best Production Design.
Production design has been an area of study at AFTRS since the Diploma first started in the late 70s right up until today, with other graduates including Annie Beauchamp, ADG and Satellite Award winner for Moulin Rouge! (2002); Alex Holmes, AACTA nominee for The Babadook (2015), The Nightingale (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020); Chris Batson, APDG Award for The Voice (2012); Justine Seymour, Emmy nominee for Unorthodox (2020) and Emma Bourke, APDG Award Best Emerging Designer for Screen for, Sweet Tooth (2019).
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