Applications closed Thursday 26 September, 5pm
Screen Queensland, in partnership with Screenworks, is bringing the experts from AFTRS to Far North Queensland for our NQ Introduction to Screenwriting Course. The course is designed to teach up to 20 emerging practitioners the craft of screenwriting, beginning with how to write festival-ready short films and continuing with hands-on methods for building character, story and structure.
Led by award-winning writer and director Jayden Rathsam Hua, the two-week course will start Tuesday 15 October with four online sessions culminating in an in-person workshop in Cairns on Thursday 31 October.
Festival Director of Port Shorts Film Festival, Alison George, will also be joining the participants in Cairns to share her insights into curating a festival program and what makes a successful short film alongside local writer and producer Jannah Dryden.
Learn more about the NQ Screenwriting Course here.
The NQ Introduction to Screenwriting Course is delivered as part of our North Queensland Regional Program.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
Applicants must be:
- over 18 years of age
- an Australian citizen or resident, living in North Queensland for a minimum of 6 months immediately prior
- able to demonstrate a story/script they are currently writing.
WHAT DO I NEED TO APPLY?
To be considered for this course you must have a story idea that you have already been working on—it can be in the very early stages of development. Your application must include:
- a basic treatment of your story which may include some of or all of the following:
- Logline
- Synopsis
- Main character information
- statement (250 words) about the story you want to tell and why.
- script sample of up to 5 pages (optional).
ABOUT JAYDEN RATHSAM HUA
Jayden Rathsam Hua is a Chinese Australian writer/director focused on documentary and horror, with a Masters in Producing from AFTRS. His short documentary, the Key of B, won Best Documentary at the Lightworks Film Festival and the Gold Award at the Atlanta International Documentary Film Festival. His short film, Sushi Noh, has screened at over 30 international film festivals, winning Audience Choice and The Most Bonkers award at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Best Student Short at Another Hole in the Head in San Francisco, and Best Screenplay for an Australian Short at Flickerfest 2023, releasing online on Halloween 2023 on Short of the Week, ALTER, and Vimeo Staff Picks.
Since graduating from AFTRS, Jayden has worked as the Production Coordinator for Lingo Pictures and in the VFX Production team at Industrial Light and Magic for Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1. Jayden is a MIFF Accelerator Lab and TIFF Filmmaker Lab alumnus and won the 2023 Inner West Film Fest Pitching Competition, panelled by Breathless and Causeway Films, with his concept for the Sushi Noh feature film. Jayden has since co-founded the genre-focused Australian production company COSMIC SCREAM alongside producers Hugo Koehne and Henry Koehne and is currently developing the Sushi Noh feature film, his debut feature, Matriarch, with support from Screen Australia, and is in post-production for his next horror short, Belloe, due in 2024.
ABOUT ALISON GEORGE
As the Festival Director of Port Shorts Film Festival since 2015, Ali George plays a key role in selecting the films for screening, curating the overall festival experience, and liaising closely with filmmakers. Alongside her festival duties, she continues her work as a professional photographer and videographer, and contributes her skills on film sets in the camera department.
ABOUT JANNAH DRYDEN
Jannah Dryden is an emerging Australian filmmaker based in regional Queensland whose work in comedy is starting to garner significant attention and praise. She began her screen career writing and producing commercial advertising comedy skits, notably working with comedy great Celeste Barber, before transitioning into narrative comedy in 2022. Along with her creative co-pilot Glenn Saggers, Jannah’s debut short comedy film Chesters (2023) received numerous accolades, including Best Australian Short Film, Best Director, and several finalist and semi-finalist nominations both in Australia and abroad, and more recently selected as a finalist in this year’s Port Shorts Film Festival.
Image by Kaitlyn Baker, courtesy of Unsplash.
