Two new Victorian Government programs are aiming to change the game for women in Australia’s screen industry – paving the way for more women in leadership positions.
Eleven women working across Victoria’s film, television and digital games sectors have been awarded Film Victoria fellowships totalling $186,000 to boost their careers.
The Women in Games Fellowship and the Film Victoria-Natalie Miller Fellowship Women in Leadership Development Initiative provide tailored development opportunities for women to build their leadership skills and professional expertise.
The fellowships and bursaries, fully funded by Film Victoria, are tailored to strategically develop the career of the recipient with activities ranging from international placements and formal training to mentorships.
Games fellowships have been awarded to
Bursaries have also gone to five women working in film and television:
While women comprise around half of audiences, they are underrepresented across Australia’s screen industries, particularly in key creative roles. In feature films women comprise only 16 per cent of directors and 21 per cent of writers, while only 8.7 per cent of game creators are women.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley
“We’re taking a proactive approach to developing local talent and bolstering equality in our creative industries.”
“These dynamic women each have an impressive track record and strong leadership potential – I look forward to their growing contribution to the industry and to our creative state.”
Quotes attributable to Film Victoria CEO Jenni Tosi
“Congratulations to each of these dynamic women who are incredible assets to the Victorian screen community and bring diverse perspectives to our screen industry. These fellowships and bursaries will ensure they are able to further their careers, are encouraged to take on leadership roles and ultimately strengthen the sector as a whole.”
Quotes attributable to Natalie Miller Fellowship President Sue Maslin
“The Natalie Miller Fellowship congratulates the five outstanding Victorian women who have the opportunity to further their leadership goals through this exciting funding initiative with Film Victoria.”
Women in Games recipients
Katie Gall
Katie is the co-founder and creative director of games marketing consultancy, Lumi Consulting. Since its inception in 2014 Lumi Consulting has worked with over 60 Australian and international games clients. Katie helped deliver PR for the global hit, Crossy Road, and in 2016 was named as one of the MCV Pacific (Market for Computer and Video Games) 30 Under 30.
Lisy Kane
Producer at League of Geeks and Co-founder of Girl Geek Academy, Lisy has worked on internationally released titles: Hand of Fate, and the multi-award-winning games Armello and Push Me Pull You. She has run sell-out events such as SheHacks 2015 (Australia’s first all-female hackathon) and SheMakes_Games 2015 which will be returning in 2016.
Brooke Maggs
Brooke is an independent writer, narrative designer and producer working with The Voxel Agents on The Gardens Between, an adventure puzzle game with no text or speech. She is also the narrative designer on Earthlight, a virtual reality game about the wonders and perils of space by Opaque Multimedia. She has taught games studies, user experience design and cultural studies at a tertiary level for over seven years. Recently named in the top 100 most influential women in games, Brooke has talked about games and writing fiction on a range of panels at festivals and industry conventions. She also writes research papers on the importance of games and play in creative writing and the links between digital literature and traditional literature.
Kalonica Quigley
Kalonica is a 3D Artist who develops award-winning games with small teams and independently. She currently works as Lead 3D Artist with independent digital production studio VRTOV, a niche studio that crafts narrative experiences at the borderline of film and games. VRTOV recently completed a VR fairytale ‘The Turning Forest’ for BBC Research & Development which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, New York, and currently has a documentary VR project in development for BBC Learning.
Giselle Rosman
Giselle has been working in the games industry for almost a decade. She has run IGDA Melbourne since 2009, and is currently the Executive Producer of Global Game Jam worldwide where she also leads the Melbourne component of this event. In 2015 Giselle joined the Hipster Whale team and earlier this year was involved in the roll out of Disney Crossy Road.
Kamina Vincent
Building on early experience volunteering with Freeplay and GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) Kamina went on to be an organiser for Melbourne Global Game Jam 2013 and every subsequent GCAP event. Kamina worked with Tin Man Games for a number of years, managing quality assurance on numerous titles, working as Community Manager, Editor, Logic Editor, QA Lead, and eventually Producer. In April 2016, Kamina left Tin Man games to join and help establish a new craft games development, Mountains. Recently named in the top 100 most influential women in games in Australia, Kamina was also awarded Creative Inspiration at the MCV Pacific Women in Games lunch hosted by Xbox.
Film Victoria-Natalie Miller Fellowship Women in Leadership Development initiative recipients
Britt Arthur
Currently CEO / Conference Director of AIDC (Australian Independent Documentary Conference), Britt has extensive experience in producer, writer and director roles, with credits on over 120 hours of programming for commercial and public broadcast. Her projects across the documentary and factual sector have broadcast in over ten countries and have been selected for prestigious film festivals such as IDFA, Sydney Film Festival, MIFF and the BFI London Film Festival.
Philippa Campey
Founder of independent production company Film Camp and experienced producer, Philippa’s award-winning projects span documentaries and theatrical features, which have screened at over 50 international festivals including Berlinale, Cannes, Chicago and Sundance, alongside theatrical releases and TV broadcasts. Her projects have also been recognised with AFI, AWGIES and SPAA award nominations and wins. Philippa has previously held programming roles at MIFF and Accelerator workshops, teaching roles with RMIT, VCA, Accelerator, OpenChannel and AFTRS and was a previous Board member of AIDC and OpenChannel.
Rachel Davis
Children's TV specialist, Rachel Davis is a highly experienced and creative script and development executive, and producer, whose work has been recognised with Logie and AACTA nominations and shortlisted for the Prix Jeunesse. Rachel has a track record in internationally successful series, both in creating, pitching and producing new ideas and adapting and reinventing existing brands. She has worked with broadcasters, distributors and independent producers in the UK, New Zealand and Australia.
Previous roles have seen Rachel as CBBC’s head of drama development, script executive with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, and a consultant executive producer for ABC3.
Gabrielle Oldaker
Gabrielle began her career in marketing across print and digital media with The Mail on Sunday (UK), The Herald Sun and CitySearch before taking on the role of senior marketing manager for theatrical marketing at Madman Entertainment. During this time she led the strategy and development of marketing campaigns for Australian films including Animal Kingdom, Snowtown and The Turning, and is currently marketing manager for local productions and arthouse film at Roadshow Films.
Leanne Tonkes
An experienced producer, Leanne has a strong technical background in sound and post-production, which saw her at one time working as one of the few female sound engineers in the Australian industry. She co-founded a profitable commercials production company before becoming a successful producer of long form content, award winning videos and short films. Leanne is a passionate advocate for women filmmakers, and currently has a number of feature film, TV and web-series projects in development working with a significant number of female writers and directors on largely female focussed content.