Queensland’s brand of short and sharp storytelling will come to festival screens around the world in 2018, with Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today announcing the opening of applications for Screen Queensland’s SQ Shorts program.

The Queensland Government, through Screen Queensland, will invest $480,000 in 12 short films as part of the program, which creates opportunities for the state’s early and mid-career creative talent to develop standout stories for the screen.

The selected projects will each receive funding of $40,000, along with high-level mentoring and workshops to aide development and production.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the shorts will screen at a number of popular international film festivals and events.

“SQ Shorts demonstrates the Queensland Government’s solid support for encouraging local talent,” the Premier said.

“The films may be short, but that doesn’t mean the tales can’t be tall and I’m excited to see the visions of a dozen wildly-creative Queensland teams spring into life on screens here and abroad”

SQ Shorts will support nine films of 8-10 minutes in length, including three edgy genre shorts, three shorts around the theme of ‘love’ from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander filmmaking teams and three shorts to screen in competition at Screamfest LA, California’s landmark horror festival.

Three teams of filmmakers will also create comedy pilots of 5-7 minutes for audiences aged between 18-25 to screen at the Online Video Awards in September 2018 and stream on YouTube.

Filmmaking teams consisting of Queensland writers, directors and producers are eligible to apply and all development, production and post production must take place in Queensland, with 100 per cent of the budget spent within the state.

For guidelines and applications to SQ Shorts: https://screenqueensland.com.au/initiatives/queensland-originals/sq-shorts/ 

Application deadline is 1 March 2018