Top from left: NIDA WritersHolly Franich, Mahsa Faroughi, Declan Coyle, Gabe Francis,Eliva Andriamoraby andJordyn Fulcher
Bottom: NIDA Writers readings in action in 2019.
What are the stories and characters that we will be watching next year? Live online and streamed from 14-18 February, NIDA Writers Readings presents excerpts from new stage plays, screenplays, docudramas and television scripts.
Harriet Gillies is an award-winning performance artist and theatre director working across a range of performance modes. A tutor in the NIDA MFA Writing for Performance program, she said: ‘This exciting group of writers have showed great resilience and a dedication to sharing stories that are important to them, through a year of pandemic pandemonium that has left most of us questioning everything. Sharing stories that we will see on our TV screens, cinemas, and stages, these writers show great potential as future leaders in the cultural landscape of Australia.
THE WRITERS AND THEIR NEW WORKS
FromMatt Bostock,who grew up within the expat society of Melbourne to an Australian Chinese father and a Filipino mother, comesa pilot episode for a TV miniseriesTrue Blue: Rob. ‘Brisbane, 1967. Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War is escalating. The 1967 Referendum has yet to be voted on. The White Australia Policy was still in place. Rob, a white Australian veteran, his new Chinese-Malay wife Shirley, and their four-year-old son, John, ask: what does it really mean to be Australian?’
FromMahsa Foroughi,a Persian poet, critic and interdisciplinary artist, has created thedocudrama A Poetic Suicide. ‘A disillusioned poet and her cynical cameraman take us on a spiralling inner journey into the poet’s brain who tries to escape the trauma of persecution. To reveal and revive the truth, we must hold on to poetry and swing between dream and reality, fact and fiction, verity and myth.’
Holly Franichgraduated from UTS in Communications and has found her niche in short fiction, filmic and mixed media works.She has createdUpstream a television pilot. ‘No one ever leaves the Central Coast. It collects white bogans like dust on an incel’s wallet condom. Lola, and the graduating class of 2014, must navigate the rudimentary social pressures of a town stuck in the past. All she has to do is graduate without incurring any permanent deficits like suicide or children.’
Douglas Hackettis an emerging actor and writer who trained at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.Dogged is his television pilot. ‘Jess Fleming had everything: a loving husband, a six-year-old daughter, and a well-paying job at a right-wing magazine. But after unwittingly infecting her husband after an act of dogging, Jess is now jobless, living with her parents, and relegated to weekends with her child. What actually is dogging?’
Siham Serhon is a writer, artist, and filmmaker, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing (UNSW, 2015). Shehas writtenimPECcable, a television pilot. ‘One drunken night, Sharna and her best-friend Dee-Dee cast a spell they bought at a market in the hopes of creating the perfect man. And from this desperation and freaky universe magic stuff, David is born.’
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