Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, said, “Supporting Australia’s screen sector is vital to ensuring our nation’s stories are seen and heard at home and around the world. This funding will help ensure creative talent is nurtured, and artist and arts workers have career structures that are long-term and sustainable – among the key priorities of Revive, the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy.”
Screen Australia’s Head of Industry Development, Ken Crouch said, “With such a wealth of production taking place around the country, it’s a priority for us to improve the industry’s capability and set the sector up for a consistent pipeline of work and opportunities for filmmakers to advance their skills in below-the-line roles. Screen Australia is proud to be working with the state screen agencies to address areas of immediate need. By partnering with each of the states we can support the work they are doing and help them to build crew capacity with a tailored approach.”
“It’s important that we all work together to ensure we are in the best position to keep up the pace, and this is an important first step. In order for Australia to capitalise and enable a booming local screen industry, attractive globally, it will be critical to have further skills development investment in industry-ready training,” Crouch continued.
In 2021/22 there was an unprecedented spend of $2.29 billion in Australia on producing scripted drama alone, including $1.51 billion on local titles. In response to the sector’s immediate issues and to build resilience for the Australian screen industry, Ausfilm, on the back of the production infrastructure and capacity audit it commissioned, convened a national Workforce Capacity Working Group in December 2021 to bring together government, industry and education to collaboratively work together. The working group is made up of the Office for the Arts (as Chair), Screen Australia, Australian Film Television and Radio School, Ausfilm, NIDA and the state screen agencies.
Crouch joined Screen Australia last month in a newly created role to drive coordination across all industry stakeholders and levels of government, and to develop and implement national programs that support capacity building and skills development for the Australian screen sector.
Immediate actions to address identified skills shortages include the following funded programs:
The funding announced today is in addition to a range of initiatives Screen Australia is running to support above-the-line practitioners including: