Screen Queensland and Australians in Film launch the Greg Coote Scholarship
Australia’s Hugh Jackman will announce at tonight’s Australians in Film Benefit Gala Dinner at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California (Sunday 26 October), a new initiative by Screen Queensland and Australians in Film, namely the Greg Coote Scholarship.
The Greg Coote Scholarship will offer a Queensland writer, producer, director or creative executive the once in a lifetime opportunity to be placed for a minimum of 6-8 weeks in a US television series Writers’ Room valued at AU$10,000. It comes with a ‘priceless’ industry experience swing tag.
“Greg Coote was one of Australia’s greatest screen industry leaders and our aim with this Scholarship is to honour his work and continue his extraordinary legacy of opening doors for Australians and help them to forge successful and fulfilling careers,” said Screen Queensland CEO Tracey Vieira.
“Throughout his illustrious career, Greg advocated greater accessibility to the arts for younger people. We are going to pick up his baton of commitment and increase our talent’s access to the skills and knowledge that can be gained by being a part of a US Writers’ Room.”
Tonight’s announcement by Jackman will take place at the 3rd Annual Australians in Film Awards event which will be honouring outstanding Australian filmmakers and performers working in the United States. Greg Coote will be honoured (Posthumously) and the program will also honour AiF Breakthrough Awards for Queensland’s very own Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Brenton Thwaites (The Giver).
“The US is currently experiencing a golden age of television. The prestige once solely reserved for film is now being experienced in the television space and big star names are now flocking to the small screen due to the quality of the stories and the characters they offer.
“We can see the wider benefits this Scholarship can offer the Queensland and indeed Australian industry,” said Ms Vieira.
“We want to focus on developing our state’s pool of talent in television and long-form drama development and in the process attract more and more television productions to our state.”
Arts Minister Ian Walker said Queensland was committed to developing great screen talent to fuel the state’s burgeoning film industry, in this case supporting talent who already had runs on the board in the industry.
“The scholarship is a remarkable opportunity for a Queenslander to further develop their professional skills and extend their international networks, with benefits for the Queensland screen industry,” Mr Walker said.
Michael Kelleher, Executive Director, Australians in Film adds, “Greg Coote was the living embodiment of Australians in Film’s mission to support and nurture Australian arts in the United States. Not only his industry experience and connections, but his generous heart greatly influenced us as an organisation and this scholarship in Greg’s name is a fitting legacy.
“The Scholarship recipient will work alongside the best in the business. A Writers’ Room in a television series is a hotbed of creative expression, where a group of writers plot out episodic moments before an individual writer is sent out to turn the story into a script.
“The successful writer will play an active role in story development and who knows, they could come up with one great compelling moment that could influence the main plot of the entire series!”
For further information on the Greg Coote Scholarship including the assessment process and criteria, please visit: screenqueensland.com.au
