Writers of The Dry, Nitram, Wakefield, The Great, New Gold Mountain, Cursed! and Here Out West among nominees for the 54th Annual AWGIE Awards
An outstanding field of Australian screen and stage writers have been nominated for the 54th Annual AWGIE Awards in a year that champions storytellers who have crafted works of strength, creativity and ambition. The nominations exemplify the excellence and range of Australian writers, with stories that speak to the complexity and richness of our past, alongside those that seek to understand our present, telling tales of our everyday heroes, our struggles and our joys.
Showcasing the exceptional craft of our top screenwriters, the television categories include Oscar-nominated Tony McNamara’s genre-bending The Great, which will go up against the critically-acclaimed Wakefield , Five Bedrooms and Wentworth . Stan’s delightful down under comedy A Sunburnt Christmas and SBS’s beautifully crafted New Gold Mountain , which tells the previously untold true story of Chinese miners during the Australian gold rush, will compete in the Telemovie and Miniseries category, while the battle between Home and Away and Neighbours resumes in Serial, with nominations for Andrew Gardner, Jessica Paine, Peter Mattessi and Jason Herbison.
The Comedy – Situation and Narrative category celebrates a raft of new works, with Kitty Flanagan’s award-winning Fisk up against Aftertaste , Why Are You Like This ? and Retrograde. In Sketch comedy, another season of blisteringly funny commentary from last year’s winners The Feed will vie with work by the Gruen team and Reputation Rehab .
In a strong year for children’s television, episodes of the summer splash hit Kangaroo Beach (Simon Dodd and Tristan Dodd), the international favourite Pocoyo (Lina Foti) and the curiosity-driven The Wonder Gang (Wendy Hanna) will compete for best preschool program. In Children’s C, Hardball (Amy Stewart) and The Gamers 2037 (Hannah Fitzpatrick) will contend with two episodes of The Strange Chores (John McGeachin and Luke Tierney), while last year’s Animation winner Space Nova dominates its category, with a nomination each for Melanie Alexander and John Armstrong.
Exceptional children’s programming also runs through the Documentary nominees, with Tim Bain’s Water Safety with Kangaroo Beach up against works by Peter Flynn, George Catsi, Ari Kwasner-Catsi and Zac Perry in the Community, Educational and Training category. In the Public Broadcast category, a powerful group of documentaries examine Australia’s past and present, with Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus’ history of civil-rights and Indigenous filmmaking in Ablaze alongside Tom Murray’s tale of the extraordinary life of Indigenous WWI soldier Douglas Grant ( The Skin of Others) . They will compete with Firestarter , Nel Minchin and Wayne Blair’s masterful celebration of Bangarra Dance Theatre’s first 30 years, and Sally Aitken’s underwater odyssey Playing With Sharks .
Televivion nominations:
TELEVISION – SERIAL
Home and Away : Episode 7433 – Andrew Gardner
Neighbours : Episode 8328 – Jessica Paine
Neighbours : Episode 8367 – Peter Mattessi
Neighbours : Episode 8498 – Jason Herbison
TELEVISION – SERIES OR MINISERIES OF MORE THAN 4 HOURS DURATION, INCLUDING ORIGINAL AND ADAPTED WORKS
Five Bedrooms: Season 2, ‘Twenty-Seven Weeks’ – Michael Lucas with Christine Bartlett
The Great: Season 1, ‘A Pox on Hope’ – Tony McNamara and Gretel Vella
The Great: Season 1, ‘The Beaver’s Nose’ – Tony McNamara
Wakefield: Season 1, Episode 5 – Sam Meikle
Wentworth: Season 8, ‘The Unknown Terrorist’ – Kim Wilson
TELEVISION – TELEMOVIE OR MINISERIES OF 4 HOURS OR LESS DURATION, INCLUDING ORIGINAL AND ADAPTED WORKS
A Sunburnt Christmas – Elliot Vella, Gretel Vella and Timothy Walker
New Gold Mountain – Peter Cox, Yolanda Ramke, Benjamin Law, Greg Waters and Pip Karmel
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION – ‘P’ CLASSIFICATION (PRESCHOOL – UNDER 5 YEARS), ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED, ANIMATED OR PERFORMED
Kangaroo Beach : Season 1, ‘The Shark Prank’ – Simon Dodd and Tristan Dodd
Pocoyo: Season 4, ‘The Remote Control’ – Lina Foti
The Wonder Gang: Season 1, ‘Are Jellyfish Really Fish?’ – Wendy Hanna
CHILDREN’S TELEVISION – ‘C’ CLASSIFICATION (CHILDREN’S – 5–14 YEARS), ORIGINAL OR ADAPTED, ANIMATED OR PERFORMED
Hardball: Season 2, ‘Matariki’ – Amy Stewart
The Gamers 2037: Season 1, ‘The Decision’ – Hannah Fitzpatrick
The Strange Chores: Season 2, ‘Unmask a Shapeshifter’ – John McGeachin
The Strange Chores: Season 2, ‘Wear a Mech Suit’ – Luke Tierney
COMEDY – SITUATION OR NARRATIVE
Aftertaste: Season 1, ‘The Beauty and the Terroir’ – Matthew Bate
Fisk: Season 1, ‘Portrait of a Lady’ – Penny Flanagan with Kitty Flanagan
Retrograde: Season 1, Episode 3 – Declan Fay
Why Are You Like This: Season 1, ‘The Pressures of Late Capitalism’ – Mark Bonanno, Naomi Higgins and Humyara Mahbub
COMEDY – SKETCH OR LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
Gruen: Season 12, ‘Tools and Boots for Tools’ – James Colley and Sophie Braham
Reputation Rehab: Season 1, ‘Nick Kyrgios – The Bad Boy of Tennis’ – Sophie Braham with Kirsten Drysdale, Zoe Norton Lodge and Melina Wicks
The Feed : ‘Comedy Sketches 2020’ – Ben Jenkins, Alex Lee, Jenna Owen and Victoria Zerbst
ANIMATION
Space Nova: Season 1, ‘Pamela Barnacle is Alive and Well’ – Melanie Alexander
Space Nova: Season 1, ‘ Seaweed Samba’ – John Armstrong
DOCUMENTARY – PUBLIC BROADCAST (INCLUDING VOD) OR EXHIBITION
Ablaze – Alec Morgan with Tiriki Onus Firestarter – Nel Minchin and Wayne Blair
Playing With Sharks – Sally Aitken
The Skin of Others – Tom Murray
FIND THE FULL LIST OF NOMINEES FOR THE 54th ANNUAL AWGIE AWARDS HERE.
The 54th Annual AWGIE Awards
AWGIE Award recipients will be announced at the 54th Annual AWGIE Awards via an online ceremony broadcast on Tuesday 7 December 2021 . The broadcast will be free to watch via YouTube and will feature some of Australia’s finest screen and stage talent.
Awards will be presented across 19 individual categories, including feature film, television, documentary, theatre, audio, animation and children’s television. Individual category winners will be eligible for the Major Award, given to the most outstanding script of the year. Past winners have included Prima Facie (2020), The Harp in the South (2019), Lost & Found (2018), The Drover’s Wife (2017) and The Code (2014 and 2016). Individual theatre category winners are eligible for the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre.
