A wide range of travel activities will be supported through this fund and will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.  Key criteria are: 

• You must be travelling for a significant professional development opportunity with clear and demonstrable career-escalation benefits. 
• You must be an active participant in the opportunity, attending on the basis of personal invitation or a competitive selection process (e.g. this strand does not fund attendance at film festivals or conferences solely as an audience member). 
• Your involvement in the opportunity must be confirmed in writing at the point of application. 
• Your budgeted travel costs must be reasonable and we expect all applicants to contribute toward their own travel expenses to some degree. 

Travel for professional development opportunities will be capped at the following levels. Please note: this is a highly competitive fund; applications above the caps will not be accepted and all requests must be justified within your budget ask.  

Domestic: $1,000 

International, Asia-Pacific: $3,000 

International, Rest of World: $5,000 

Eligible applicants are: 

• Queensland-based Above-the-line practitioners (writers, directors, producers) and game developers travelling to participate in professional development opportunities. 
• Opportunity must offer clear and meaningful career-escalation benefits. 
• Involvement in opportunity must be confirmed in writing. 
• Available to individual applicants only. Exceptions may be made at Screen Queensland’s discretion in the case of creative teams where all applicants are Queensland residents and the relevant opportunity is available to all applicants. 

Below are several examples of what we would typically fund through the Professional Development strand of our revised Market and Travel Fund. 

✔ An opportunity arises for an emerging Queensland producer to shadow an experienced producer on a feature film shooting interstate for several weeks.

✔ A director’s short film is nominated for an award at a high-profile international festival. While not a film market, the director will be able to participate in high-level networking and pitching while overseas. 

✔ A Queensland-based screenwriter is invited to join a writers' room interstate, as a key member of the writing team on a fully-financed series, however the production will not cover their flights or accommodation. 

Below are some examples of what we would not fund. 

✘ A producer applies to attend a major international film festival, but they are not attached to any of the films in the festival, and would essentially be attending only as an audience member. 

✘ A practitioner applies to attend a domestic conference such as Screen Forever. While Screen Queensland routinely supports practitioners to attend such conferences both within Queensland and interstate, these are through separate advertised opportunities and do not form part of the Professional Development strand of the Market and Travel fund. The distinctive element of Professional Development applications is that participation is by invitation-only, or via a competitive selection process, as opposed to attendance by payment of registration alone (for example).

✘ A screenwriter has applied to attend an invitation-only writers’ workshop interstate, but they have not yet learned if their application has been successful at the point of their travel application to Screen Queensland. If their application to the workshop is successful and they can confirm this in writing, they then would be eligible to apply for funding. 

✘ A director has agreed to work on a micro-budget feature, and applies for Travel funding to assist with transport and accommodation to the remote area where they’ll be filming. However, the producer has not obtained appropriate insurances and is paying cast and crew below minimum wages. Furthermore, the feature has not secured a market partner and lacks a clear market strategy.

Applications for travel for Professional Development opportunities should be submitted via a separate application form to Market Travel. 

You can preview the application form on Smartygrants 

Your proposal will need to include the following items 

• Statement – outline the opportunity and how your involvement/attendance will meaningfully benefit your career 
• Evidence – provide written confirmation of your invitation to participate in the opportunity 
• Budget – include indicative quotes for travel and accommodation costs.   
• Applicants are expected to contribute to their own travel costs 
• Applications exceeding funding caps will not be accepted 
• Caps are: $1,000 (Domestic), $3,500 (Asia-Pacific), $5,000 (Rest of World). 
• Uploads / Links to Samples of work as required 
• CV & Bio 
• 60-90 second video pitch-to-camera. Simply tell us who you are, why you’re applying for this opportunity and how it will benefit your career.  

Your proposal will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Is it a good story?
• Is it well-told and likely to excite an audience?
• Does the team have a clear idea of who their audience is and how to reach them?
• Is the budget appropriate for the kind of project and the size of the audience it will reach?
• Does the team have a good reputation for delivering what it says it will and the skills to make this happen?
• How will this impact the careers of Queensland talent and the state screen sector more broadly?

We seek to support the creation and growth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander screen practitioners, content and representation across our industry and state.  Additionally, we are committed to ensuring diverse representation across all aspects of the production and development process. As such, diversity in areas of gender, age, culture, ethnicity, language, ability, sexuality, location (such as regional and remote areas) and socio-economic status are encouraged in projects we support.

We encourage prospective applicants to reach out to our First Nations team prior to submission.

Submission of an application constitutes acceptance of these Guidelines and the application terms and conditions.

Your information will be used in accordance with Screen Queensland’s Privacy Policy which you hereby agree to by submitting this application.

Applicants must notify Screen Queensland in writing if they have an actual, perceived or potential conflict of interest in applying for the Funding and, if so, the manner in which they propose to deal with the conflict.

The applicant retains all intellectual property rights in its submission. The applicant grants an irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty and fee free licence to the Screen Queensland to use, adapt and modify its intellectual property rights in its submission for the purposes of Screen Queensland analysing and evaluating the applicant’s submission.

Screen Queensland’s liability in relation to the application process is limited to $1.

Screen Queensland reserves the right to change any element of the Funding, these Guidelines or the application process at any time and in its absolute discretion.

• Screen Queensland Terms of Trade
• QPE Definition
• Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network Charter