An outstanding field of Australian screen and stage writers has been recognised as nominees for the 57th Annual AWGIE Awards, which will be presented by the Australian Writers’ Guild next month in Sydney.
Over 80 new works are celebrated across 22 categories, including feature film, television, documentary, theatre, interactive and gaming, audio, animation and children’s television.
Academy Award-winner Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail will compete in the animation category, alongside Isabella Spagnolo’s short film My Jumper, It Roars! and an episode of the hit sci-fi children’s show Space Nova by Thomas Duncan-Watt.
In the feature film categories, the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man (Michael Gracey, Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson) is up against Audrey (Lou Sanz), Inside (Charles Williams), Stubbornly Here (Taylor Broadley) and Windcatcher (Boyd Quakawoot). In the adaptation category, Becca Johnstone’s debut feature Addition is nominated alongside Robert Connolly’s Force of Nature.
The final season of Total Control is recognised with two nominations (Pip Karmel and Stuart Page) in Television Series, alongside episodes of Territory (Steven McGregor), Erotic Stories (Adrian Chiarella), The Artful Dodger (James McNamara) and the second season of the Netflix hit Heartbreak High (Megan Palinkas).
Four new Limited Series are nominated: Expats (Alice Bell with Lulu Wang, Janice Y.K. Lee, Gursimran Sandhu and Vera Miao), Fake (Anya Beyersdorf and Jessica Tuckwell with Hyun Lee), High Country (Marcia Gardner and John Ridley with Beck Cole) and The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Jacquelin Perske with Evan Placey and Gabbie Asher).
A strong year for Australian theatre sees ten nominations across the stage categories, with Verity Laughton’s The Dictionary of Lost Words, Patricia Cornelius’ My Sister Jill, Tommy Murphy’s On the Beach, and Campion Decent’s Unprecedented competing in Adapted.
Plays by Ron Elisha (Anne Being Frank), Challito Browne (Beyond the Break), Lewis Treston (Hubris & Humiliation), Michelle Law (Miss Peony), Nicholas Brown (Sex Magick) and Hilary Bell (Summer of Harold) round out the Stage – Original category.
The Interactive and Gaming category returns this year, with nominations for Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (Liam Esler with David Gaider, Karly Taylor, Tripod and Montaigne) and the interactive theatre production Hour of the Wolf (Keziah Warner with Matthew Lutton).
Individual theatre category winners will be eligible for the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre. Made possible by the generous donation of David and Kristin Williamson and Shane and Cathryn Brennan, the $100,000 prize is awarded to the most outstanding script selected from the winners of each of the theatre categories at the AWGIE Awards with the express purpose of encouraging theatre companies to commission, develop and program a new Australian work.
Since 1968 the Australian Writers’ Guild has presented the AWGIE Awards to recognise and reward the talents, triumphs and unique contributions of Australian screen and stage writers to the Australian arts. The AWGIE Awards are the only Australian writers’ awards judged solely by writers, based on the written script – the writer’s intention rather than the finished product.
The 57th Annual AWGIE Awards Winners will be announced on Thursday 13 February 2025 at the Parade Theatre, NIDA in Sydney. For those outside Sydney, a broadcast of the event will be free to watch from home via live stream. For more information, visit: www.awg.com.au for details.
Image: Gilbert Grace and Percy at Luna Park in Memoir of a Snail (film still)