When
Wed 7 Jul 2021
6pm (AEST)
See below for additional related events
Everybody thinks they have a book, a film or a TV series in them – but our guests have real runs on the board. Learn how they gained successful careers as writers in this livestreamed panel.
Kitty Flanagan is an author, actor, podcaster and one of Australia’s best comedians. She’ll be talking about going from being one of Australia’s least known waitresses at Pizza Hut to touring Australia and the world. But, most importantly, she’ll be talking about writing her incredibly successful ABC series Fisk, her comedy and her best-selling book 488 Rules for Life: The Thankless Art of Being Correct.
David Hannam escaped journalism to become a writer and his career has flourished. He’s best known for developing the internationally successful Prisoner reboot Wentworth and for his ABC TV movie Carlotta. His work on multiple series of the hit sci-fi Nowhere Boys resulted in numerous awards including a BAFTA and an International Emmy. He’s written on Wanted, Secret Bridesmaids’ Business, Doctor Blake, A Place to Call Home and Dance Academy.
Peter Mattessi writes about 14 hours of scripted drama every year in both Australia and the UK. In the UK, he is on the core writing team for EastEnders and in Australia he was a long-term writer for Neighbours and worked on The Heights for ABC Australia.
Join these three incredibly successful writers on a panel livestreamed on ACMI’s YouTube Channel. They’ll be taking questions from the audience throughout the session with MC Denise Eriksen of Media Mentors Australia.
Presented by
Panelists
Kitty Flanagan
Kitty Flanagan is one of Australia’s most successful comedians. Her award-winning stand up tours regularly sell out theatres across Australia. And she has performed all over the world, everywhere from South Africa to The Netherlands, even Japan and Germany.
Kitty’s work as a writer/performer on The Sketch Show UK (ITV) and regular appearances on comedy/quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention? (Channel 10), as well as her comedy segments on light entertainment programs such as The Project (Channel 10) and ABC’s The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, have made her a household name.
With a cult following for her role as the annoying (but on-point) PR manager Rhonda in the multi-award-winning ABC comedy Utopia, Kitty’s status as national treasure was cemented with the publication of her best-selling, multi-award-winning book 488 Rules for Life. Winner of the ABIA ‘Non-Fiction’ Book of 2020, it has sold over 140,000 copies and was nominated as one of the books that got readers through lockdown (Daily Advertiser).
David Hannam
Best known for writing ABC's Logie and AACTA-nominated TV movie Carlotta, and developing the internationally successful Prisoner reboot Wentworth, David's work on multiple seasons of Matchbox/NBCU's hit sci-fi Nowhere Boys garnered numerous awards, including a BAFTA and an International Emmy.
In addition to development and production executive roles, David’s writing credits include Wanted and Secret Bridesmaids’ Business, currently being adapted by NBC in the US, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, A Place to Call Home and Dance Academy.
David has original projects across various genres in development with Beyond, CJZ, and in Australia, and Synchronicity and Headline in the UK. He is currently serving as Writer and Executive Producer on Acorn’s first original, yet-to-be-announced Australian procedural.
Peter Mattessi
Peter Mattessi writes television across the UK and Australia, writing somewhere around fourteen hours of scripted drama every year. In the UK he is on the EastEnders core writing team, and was recently nominated for the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Long Running Drama script, having won the award in 2018 for his episode of Holby City.
In Australia he was a long-term writer for Neighbours, and worked on The Heights for ABC Australia from the very early stages of development. He has been nominated for the Writers’ Guild Award for Best Serial Script five times, winning it in 2018 for Neighbours and 2020 for The Heights. He is Co-Executive Producer for Season 2 of Every Cloud Productions’ Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries for Acorn and Seven.
He has original television and stage projects in development in Australia, the UK, and the US, and was also a founder of Just Pretending Theatre Company, which for the last four years has endowed an annual Wheeler Centre Fellowship for an emerging female or non-binary playwright.
Events at AFTRS
9 Mar 2021: Celebrating Women
with Corrie Chen, Debbie Cuell, Leah Purcell, Laurie Critchley and Samantha Strauss
13 Apr 2021: From Concept to Broadcast
with Rikkie Proost, Deb Spinocchia and Majella Wiemers
8 June 2021: Te Ao Maori: Making 'Cousins'
with Ainsley Gardiner, Briar Grace-Smith and Amy Thunig
Meet the Creators @ AFTRS & ACMI
Join us for a series of free, in-person and live-streamed events for the screen and broadcast industry presented by AFTRS, ACMI, Film Victoria and Media Mentors Australia.
