Screen Australia sees more cash stripped away in budget while The Conversation loses funding
Screen Australia has been hit with a further funding cut of nearly $1m per year in yesterday’s budget whilst the government also confirmed The Conversation will not receive any more funding.
The cuts mean Australia’s main funding body for TV and movies will need to find $910,000 in efficiencies over the next four years, after seeing $38m taken out of its funds in last year’s budget.
Whilst Screen Australia is remaining tight-lipped on the impact, other than to stress “no individual programs will be specifically targeted”, Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner warned the cuts could come out of project investment as the organisation has already had to scale back office functions.
He said the reductions were a further blow to the organisation, describing them as “significant and major”.
Totally reasonable. Screen Aus makes something like 37 feature films per year.. who even sees these? If the aim is to create and distribute Australian stories, nobody is seeing them. I can’t stand taxpayers money go into Screen Aus features and seeing a return less than $10k. Some don’t even last more than 2 days on screen. Put your money into better movies with marketing spend to get them seen.
Screen Australia does not fund 37 films a year. In 2013/14 it was 22. There are films that get made without Screen Australia funding.
Screen Australia is a waste of taxpayers money.