Australian screenwriting: towards policy and education reform

Australian screen storytelling is in a state of crisis. Culturally relevant stories that reflect the sensibility of Australians are disappearing from our television and cinema screens and rarely appear on the streamers. This has occurred while government ministers proclaim Australian stories are essential to well-being, social cohesion, and nation-building. In this article we argue that underlying the quantitative drop in Australian drama is a more fundamental problem: the capacity of Australian screenwriters to imagine culturally relevant stories. The origins of this lie in the internationalisation of screen industry policy, the programs and priorities of screen funding agencies, and the dominance of the Hollywood narrative paradigm in the training of screenwriters in higher education. Together, these influences have systematically eroded ‘Australianness’ in screenwriting. This article calls for research into policy frameworks and training to ensure a better place for Australian voices in education, screen development and production in future.