Victoria’s growing screen industry has received another boost, with the highly coveted screenwriter accelerator program Impact Australia returning to Melbourne for its third year.
The Australian edition of the intensive eight-week program is designed to help diverse Australian screenwriters to accelerate their projects to pitch-ready status, and ultimately take local stories to screens across the world.
Participants will be mentored by leading screenwriters from around the globe – previous mentors have included Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl), Hunter Covington (My Name is Earl), Shaun Grant (Nitram) and Stacy Traub (Glee).
Mentors will help screenwriters develop their projects and prepare them for Pitch Day, where they will be given the opportunity to pitch their project to global buyers and producers.
The 2020 and 2021 rounds of the program have resulted in tremendous success, with most of the 19 projects attracting producers and almost all of the 23 alumni writers having signed representation.
Comedy duo Luke Goodall and Marc Gallagher, who were involved in the 2020 program, received production funding to make a crime parody called The Followers that will stream on YouTube later this year.
“To say that Impact has been transformational for us would be an understatement. The shift in the quality of our work after Impact has been career changing,” they said.
Exclusive to Melbourne, Impact Australia is delivered by international entertainment start-up Impact and independent Melbourne-based production company Gentle Giant Media Group.
It is made possible with support from the Victorian and Commonwealth governments through VicScreen and Screen Australia and supported by learning partner the University of Melbourne and other state and territory screen agencies across Australia.
Applications are open from 21 June to 10 July, with the mentorship program to begin on 26 September. Pitch Day is set for January 2023. The program will be held at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts’ Southbank campus.
For more information or to apply, visit impact-australia.com/accelerator