AH! THE AWGIES!

by Mark Poole

This article was first published on Screenhub, the online journal.

Ah! The AWGIES! The performance awards to writers of film, television, radio and stage, organized by the Australian Writers Guild. The 39th AWGIEs were held last Friday night in August, 2006, at the Four Seasons in The Rocks, Sydney. The AWGIEs have been a part of my life for more years than I care to remember.

Do you want a 20 year perspective? This year’s AWGIEs brought back memories of the first Sydney AWGIEs I attended, in 1985 at the Opera House around the corner. That was the year Ray Lawrence and Peter Carey shared the Major AWGIE for Bliss. Then, I was a newcomer to the Australian writing scene, freshly upgraded from an Associate to a Full Member of the Writers’ Guild. Now, I’m part of the furniture, having just stepped off the Guild’s Board after five years, and even having a part in the organizing of this year’s event.

So what has changed over those 20 years, I mused. Everything, and nothing, it seems. For despite the obvious downturn in our industry’s fortunes in the 21st century, the AWGIE night conjured up an atmosphere of comaradie and even optimism. Perhaps this has more to do with the Guild, a veritable family of writers, than with the external forces looming over us in 2006. As Tim Pye, NSW Vice President of the AWG and distinguished writer remarked to me at 2 AM at the after party, the night had demonstrated how many writers care – about the Guild, the profession of writing and the industry. And that was demonstrated by the passion of the speeches throughout the night.

First up was President Simon Hopkinson, who gave voice to this feeling of community amongst writers by announcing that four veterans had been bestowed with life membership in recognition of their services to the Guild and writers generally over the years. Their number included Judith Colquhoun and Cliff Green, both of whom were helpful to me in gaining a foothold in my early career. Simon thanked outgoing Executive Director Megan Elliott for blasting us into the 21st century, (my description, not his!) and welcomed incoming ED Jacqueline Woodman, who is already showing every sign that she will pick up where Megan left off, and then some. Over the past five years, the AWG has defied gravity by increasing membership at a time when other organizations have declined, and this is testimony to Megan Elliott’s energy and verve. Quite an achievement against the prevailing economic winds.

As the evening bubbled on, the new ED Jacqueline Woodman may have been surprised by the intensity of feeling of its members about the Guild and the writing world. After all, most membership driven organizations are in fact driven by a tiny minority of members, and the bulk are rarely seen or heard of. But at the 39th AWGIEs there they all were, writer upon writer, and it was obvious that they all cared!

Also present was a fair sprinkling of luminaries from the arts community, including federal MP Bruce Baird, Senator Natasha Stott Despoja and NSW Labor MLC Dr Meredith Burgmann, and also Rose Byrne, Andrew Denton, Margaret Fink and Jennifer Byrne.

So who won the awards? Well Katherine Thomson won a fair few of them – three in fact. Patricia Cornelius won two, and so did Greg Haddrick. All of whom have won AWGIEs before; but there were a sheaf of newcomers to the podium as well, including Alice Bell for Suburban Mayhem, and Luke Davies (with Neil Armfield) for Candy.

For those who are unfamiliar with the way the AWGIEs operate, they are judged in a careful and exhaustive process by their peers. In each voting category, judges must be experienced in the area, and have usually won AWGIEs themselves in the past. A co-ordinator, this year Peter Neale, supervises the whole process and checks that the rules are being obeyed.

One key difference between the AWGIEs and other awards is that the criteria for achieving a nomination in a category is strict – the entry must be judged capable of winning the award. So nobody gets a nomination as an encouragement. And the script must be judged as up to the standard of past years. So it sometimes happens that the judges decide no entry is worthy of an AWGIE at all. Or, they may decide that one script is worth an award, but there are no others worthy of a nomination. This happened in several categories this time round.

In many of the categories, though, the list of nominations showed the strength of the writing out there. For example, in Documentary – Public Broadcasting, four entries were judged powerful enough to potentially win an AWGIE – Hunt Angels by Alec Morgan, Girl In A Mirror by Kathy Drayton, He’s Coming South by Keith Thompson and Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst by Katherine Thomson. The two Thom(p)sons have both won numerous AWGIEs before, but not usually for documentary, so it was interesting to see two such experienced writers in this category. The award finally went to Katherine Thomson for Unfolding Florence – but remember, the other three candidates all ranked potential award winners by the judges, or they couldn’t have been nominated.

As mentioned earlier, it was Katherine Thomson’s night, for also won an AWGIE for the Mini Series “Answered By Fire,” with Barbara Samuels, and also the Major award, the coveted Gold AWGIE amongst AWGIEs.

Two other writers won two AWGIES on the night – playwright Patricia Cornelius, for Boy Overboard in the Theatre for Young Audiences category, and Love in the Stage category. Greg Haddrick won for his episode of MDA in Television Series, and then for The Society Murders, which Greg co-wrote with Kylie Needham in the Telemovie Adaptation category.

Another strong field of nominations was in feature film, with Alice Bell’s Surburban Mayhem taking off the gong from Ann Turner’s Irresistible and Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes.  Alice is a newcomer to the AWGIEs, but Turner and de Heer have both won in the past.

Telemovie Original was yet another strong field, with Geoffrey Atherden, Peter Gawler, Kathleen Mary Fallon and Kaye Bendle & Keith Thompson vying for the award. Peter Gawler won for “Little Oberon.”

During the evening, Geoffrey Atherden announced a series of initiatives being undertaken by the AWG’s sister organization, the Australian Writers’ Foundation, which is set to provide a raft of professional development services to new writers with funding from the New South Wales government. Later in the evening, Geoffrey was awarded the Richard Lane Award for his extensive services to the Guild.

The speeches grew longer during the night, with spirited plea from Patricia Cornelius for the Australia Council to fund artists and writers rather than create another tier of gatekeepers. The evening was ably hosted by Chas Licciardello and Julian Morrow from The Chaser, and the winners’ clips played without a glitch for the third year in a row. The evening was ably organized by producer Jane Ballantyne and the AWG’s Pip Newling, who did a fantastic job.

The full list of AWGIE winners is available from the AWG website: www.awg.com.au.