WA Screen Awards to be announced next Friday

The 25th annual WA Screen Awards (WASAs) will be announced next Friday, August 2, at the Astor Theatre.

The WASAs are the premier celebration of West Australian screen culture, celebrating excellence and achievements in feature film, short film, web series, music videos, television production, documentary and games.

Following a record 800 entries, a grand total of 104 nominees across 66 film projects are in the running to win a WA Screen Award.

The nominees for the prestigious Central Institute of Technology Young Filmmaker of the Year award for 2013 are Tenille Kennedy, Cassandra Nguyen, David Vincent Smith and Keir Wilkins.

This year’s most-nominated projects include LINK-produced short film Perished written and directed by Aaron McCann and Stefan Androv Radanovich, HyperLINK-produced short film George Jones & the Giant Squid written and directed by Vincenzo Perrella and Dan Osborn and TV documentary Desert War produced by Andrew Ogilvie, Andrew Quesnelle and Phil Craig, which received five nominations respectively.

Web series Henry & Aaron’s 7 Steps to Superstardom (pictured above) produced by Henry Inglis, Aaron McCann and Lauren Elliott and feature film Blame produced by Melissa Kelly, Ryan Hodgson and Michael Robinson received four nominations respectively, and short films One Night Only produced by Michael Facey and Bush Basher produced by Ross Hutchens and Tenille Kennedy, received three nominations respectively.

The 2013 ceremony will be bigger than ever with a grand total of $33,000 in cash prizes to be awarded on the night. Living Legend, Jack Thompson (The Great Gatsby, The Man From Snowy River, Breaker Morant) will be joining Rachael Blake (Sleeping Beauty, Lantana, The Straits) and Tony Martin (Wildside, Heartbreak High, Candy), as special guests, helping to present the awards.

Film & Television Institute (FTI) CEO Paul Bodlovich said the competitive nature of this year’s WASAs was an indicator of an increasingly vibrant WA screen sector.

“FTI would like to thank the 60 industry judges who had the unenviable task of determining which of the 800 entries were the most deserving of recognition. As always, many worthy projects missed out. FTI congratulates all the nominees and wish them the very best of luck for the Gala Awards Ceremony on 2 August.”

The winner of the ScreenWest Outstanding Contribution Award will be a West Australian who has enhanced the vibrancy of the screen sector through either bringing acclaim and profile to the sector via their own remarkable careers and achievements, or by working behind the scenes to the benefit of other screen practitioners.

“The WASAs are a chance to recognise talents of the local industry and besides being a proud sponsor of the event we are also pleased to be recognising an individual that has made a fantastic contribution to the screen industry.” said CEO of ScreenWest, Ian Booth.