THE CLIVE PARKINSON FILM ENDOWMENT - A GRANT OF $20,000 TO A LUCKY FILMMAKER

 

THE CLIVE PARKINSON FILM ENDOWMENT   The Clive Parkinson Film Endowment offers one grant each year of £10,000 / A$20,000 which is available to filmmakers in Australia and the United Kingdom to produce a film of 30 to 45 minutes duration which the panel considers the best example of a genre of filmmaking bearing witness to the importance of landscape and social environment in people’s lives - themes which infused all of Clive’s best work.  The film can take any form, verite, narrative, experimental, poetic, or anything else which might suit this broad theme, but must be set and produced in Australia or the United Kingdom. The film will be shown simultaneously at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney and the Manchester Museum / Whitworth Gallery on or around Clive’s birthday each year, and the artist(s) should also organise a screening for the local community or region represented in the film.   Submissions should comprise a short one-page description, production schedule and working plan of the proposed film, along with links to examples of the filmmaker’s work produced in recent years.    Closing date for the first award will be 25 January 2027 (Clive’s birthday), and the recipient will be announced shortly thereafter.  The film must be locked and ready for screening 12 months later on January 25th the following year.  Closing date for submissions in subsequent years will be on December 31st.   SEND ALL SUBMISSIONS TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS info@parkinsonendowment.co.site CLOSING DATE IS 25 JANUARY 2027 WE ENCOURAGE ALL RECIPIENTS OF THIS INFORMATION  TO CIRCULATE THE DETAILS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED Professor Clive Parkinson was a distinguished academic, psychologist, writer and non-commercial photographer and filmmaker who made a huge contribution to the field of Arts For Health around the world.  He was Director of Arts for Health and Reader in Arts, Health and Social Justice at Manchester Metropolitan University until July 2021 when, after 20 years there, he left to explore work which was more amenable to his recent diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma, a bone marrow cancer which he described as an ‘inconsiderate lodger’.   Addressing social inequities has been central to his thinking and practice, and his work has always had a strong focus on mental health and living well across the life-course, regardless of any diagnoses or labels. After leaving school at sixteen with few qualifications, he attended the local art college and began working at a large Victorian hospital for adults with learning disabilities where he established an artists’ studio alongside residents of this closed community. He describes this period as being the most formative in his life, where he learned and grew as an artist alongside the people living in the hospital. During his time there completed a degree in Independent Studies and Visual Art at Lancaster University where his research focused on the relationship between creativity, culture, the arts and health and he subsequently completed research for a Doctor of Philosophy degree. Subsequently employed across the NHS and voluntary sector, in these early years he led mental health promotion for an NHS Trust and managed day services for people affected by schizophrenia in the seaside town of Morecambe. Before taking up a position at Manchester Metropolitan University, he lived in Cornwall and was development director of Arts for Health Cornwall & Isles of Scilly. Once employed in the tertiary education sector, he became closely involved with arts and health developments in the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan and proved central to strategic developments and practical activity in this field over decades. In 2011 he facilitated a series of participatory workshops across the North West UK exploring the impact of the arts on wider society and developing the Manifesto for Arts & Health. Between 2009 and 2023 he wrote a regular blog which garnered a large international readership and offered opportunities to access funding, training and networking, while holding up a critical lens to its own community. Between 2012 and 2018 he was director of the National Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing and was closely involved with the development of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health & Wellbeing for which the Alliance provided the secretariat. From its inception, he was the North West regional champion for arts and health in the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance. Clive worked closely with Socialiniai Meno Projektai in Lithuania to develop culturally focused research, advocacy and policy. In the UK, Italy and Turkey he worked with people in recovery, reframing thinking about substance misuse from a cultural perspective. He wrote the Recoverist Manifesto in 2014 after working collectively with people affected by substance misuse and collaborated with the groundbreaking Portraits of Recovery. The Manifesto is available in Dutch, English, Gaelic, Italian, Lithuanian and Turkish. A regular speaker at international conferences, between 2009 and 2016 he supported the development of the Australian Centre for Arts and Health, speaking at their conference regularly. He spoke at MoMA in New York, TATE Liverpool, the V&A in London and the MCA in Sydney, and at numerous international events including conferences and seminars in Japan, Estonia, Ireland, China and Cambodia. In Australia he was keynote speaker at Artlands Dubbo in 2016 and in 2017 he was a commissioned artist at The Big Anxiety Festival. Between 2014 and 2017 he worked in collaboration with Australian artist Vic McEwan on an artists’ residency at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital where he wrote the book Critical Care as a response to McEwan’s practice and the unfolding relationships that took place within the clinical environment. He convened the Manchester Institute for Arts, Health & Social Change (MIAHSC) and in 2019 compiled and published The Manchester Declaration from workshops and conversations with citizens and workers across Greater Manchester - people who are unified in their belief that the arts, in all their forms, offer a collective force for social change. In 2021 he wrote A Social Glue, a report for Greater Manchester Combined Authority which explores the potential of culture and the arts across the city region and setting out some tangible recommendations informing The Greater Manchester Creative Health Strategy published in November 2022. Also in 2022 the University of Manchester made him honorary chair of Creative Health & Social Change. In June 2024 he formally closed MIAHSC. His keynote for the Culture, Health & Wellbeing International Conference 2021 explored his ruminations on power, inequality and sustainability through the experience of his own treatment. Increasingly after his diagnosis - and regardless of a difficult prognosis - he found his curiosity and imagination piqued by the increased awareness of his own mortality.  He met the writer Jenn Ashworth and with her explored the tricky space between nature writing, the cult of wellbeing, friendship and mortality. In July 2025 her new book - The Parallel Path - was published, describing their interactions investigating these subjects.  At the time of his death, he was also exploring an extensive and unpublished archive relating to the writer and artist Denton Welch and was experimenting with found Super 8 home cine film, reimagining the unknown narratives of strangers.   Many of Clive’s short films can be viewed here:  https://cliveparkinson.org/film   There will be a signed agreement between the donors and the recipient confirming the commitment to deliver a finished film by the agreed date. If the recipient fails to deliver the film on time as prescribed, they must repay 50% of the award which may then be awarded to another submission. The committee may not make an award in a given year if they do not receive any submissions deserving of the funds. The grant is awarded to a single project but may be shared between multiple recipients if those recipients are joint producers/co-directors of the film. The use of Artificial Intelligence is not permitted in any aspect of the film’s production, and use of any AI software will result in the immediate forfeit of the grant. Note that if the film incorporates any visual or audio material from another source, the recipient is responsible for all permissions and clearances for the use of that material in the film. With respect to First Nations cultural material, grant applicants will also need to affirm that they will obtain cultural consent from the custodians of any cultural knowledge or material that is portrayed in their film for them to exhibit the film at the screening and into the future. You should be able to request written proof of same at any time. Note also that upon completion of the film, all copyright will be with the artist(s); the Endowment will have no financial interest in whatever life the film may have beyond these initial screenings (we will retain exhibition rights in perpetuity, but if any revenue is realised through exhibition in whatever form by the Endowment, 100% of that revenue will be paid to the artist(s)). NOTE: The views of the Clive Parkinson Film Endowment and film makers are their own and do not reflect the views of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the NSW Government, or the Manchester Museum.

What Now for the Australian Cinema?- James Ricketson suggests directions (2) - Comments received on GATEKEEPERS and a question for Australian filmmakers, producers and funders.

Poster for Blackfellas (James Ricketson
Australia, 1993)

NOTE: This is the second of a series of pieces composed by filmmaker James Ricketson. The first titled GATEKEEPERS was published here“

James has followed up the piece above with this summary by summarising the comments posted on Facebook following publication.

James  writes: The comments made so far are worth commenting on. They raise more questions than they answer, which was one of the purposes of my original post.

Several filmmakers have contacted me privately to say they agree with lots of what I wrote but don't feel comfortable saying so publicly while they have projects before funding bodies. Whether or not their fear of being blacklisted is justified, the fact that experienced filmmakers feel this way is not healthy. It should be possible to constructively criticise the organisations dispensing public money without fearing that doing so might damage our careers.

One comment raises an excellent question about what we mean by "development". How fully developed must a project already be before it qualifies for development funding? Some films emerge through research, improvisation, workshops and encounters with real people. If applicants must know precisely where the journey will take them before receiving development funding, what exactly is being developed?

Another contributor has reminded me not to romanticise the old face-to-face assessment system. She was rejected from AFTRS partly because two male assessors decided that, as a single mother, she couldn't afford to attend. Human beings bring intuition, imagination and enthusiasm to assessment processes, but they can also bring prejudice, favouritism and unconscious bias.

I am not suggesting that we turn the clock back 50 years. The challenge is to find a hybrid: retaining the fairness and accountability that contemporary assessment procedures are intended to provide while restoring something of the face-to-face human encounters that have been lost.

My own filmmaking career illustrates why I think this matters.

In 1971 I applied for $300 to make my first film. I had no filmmaking experience, no credits and no screenplay — merely a paragraph describing a film I wanted to make with non-professional actors in a retirement home. Two assessors wanted to reject me. The third, Dick Mason, met me, trusted his gut and persuaded the others to take a risk.

That $300 changed my life.

This is also why arguments about whether Young Einstein was a good or bad film miss the point. It wasn't my cup of tea either. But audiences loved it. An assessor's job cannot simply be to ask, "Do I like this?" The more pertinent and difficult question is: "Is there something here that somebody else might love?"

No assessment system can contain a box marked: MAY CAPTURE THE ZEITGEIST THREE YEARS FROM NOW.

Creative funding necessarily involves risk. If we devise assessment systems designed to minimise risk, we shouldn't be surprised when the films that emerge from them are themselves risk-averse.

The question, then, isn't whether we should return to the way things were.

It is: How can we devise a fair and accountable assessment system that still leaves room for eccentricity, intuition, risk, the unconventional filmmaker — and the occasional crazy idea that looks hopeless on paper but comes alive when you meet the person who wants to make it?

I have my own ideas, but I am only one filmmaker. There are many with different ideas to my own.

For discussion, dialogue and debate.

What Now for the Australian Cinema?- James Ricketson suggests directions (1) - GATEKEEPERS

James Ricketson

For discussion, dialogue and debate

Would Young Einstein have received development funding if Yahoo Serious had been assessed anonymously by Screen Australia's "industry experts" through an online application form?

Prior to the establishment of Screen Australia in 2008, fledgling filmmakers could meet face-to-face with experienced filmmaker/assessors. I was one of those assessors, working for the Australian Film Commission on short-term contracts for a dozen or so years.

In the early 1980s, an applicant who had never made a film submitted a chaotically written, incoherent, incorrectly formatted, comedy screenplay riddled with typos. We three assessors were unimpressed. There was little in the written proposal to persuade us to take seriously his request for $15,000 to shoot three test scenes for a feature film.

Then Yahoo Serious (above) walked into the room.

He paced up and down, talked up a storm and pitched Young Einstein. His manic energy, eccentricity, self-confidence and zany sense of humour won us over. Whatever the shortcomings of his written application, here was someone worth taking a risk on.

We recommended the AFC fund the test scenes.

The rest is history.

Would a 21st-century Yahoo Serious survive today's assessment processes? Or would s/he receive a form letter of rejection from the GATEKEEPERS?

This question has become more relevant with the arrival of AI. Today, an applicant can use ChatGPT or another AI platform to produce, in an hour, a polished synopsis or treatment that appears to tick every assessment box. The written application may tell us increasingly little about the creative capacities of the human being behind it.

Put that applicant in a room with experienced filmmakers asking intelligent questions and something else becomes possible: a genuine assessment of the person as well as the paperwork.

Both Screen Australia and Screen NSW refer to assessors as "industry experts".

This brings to mind William Goldman's famous observation:

"Nobody knows anything... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one."

For decades, assessors and applicants met face-to-face. Today assessors remain anonymous and most applicants have no opportunity to pitch their projects or engage in dialogue with the people judging them.

Why?

I have asked Screen Australia and Screen NSW this question multiple times without receiving an answer.

When I asked VicScreen, CEO Caroline Pitcher responded immediately. She argued that assessor confidentiality: "...supports fair, independent and robust decision-making by enabling candid, criteria-based feedback, reducing the risk of lobbying or external pressure, and protecting assessors in what is a small and highly connected industry."

These are arguments worth taking seriously.

But there is another side to the equation.

Does protecting assessors from applicants come at the cost of removing something essential from creative assessment — human engagement?

Can creative potential be reliably assessed without meeting the creator?

In the late 1990s, I was asked by the ABC to meet a young man who had never made a documentary but wanted, as a one-man-band, to film his road-trip travels from Cape Town to Cairo.

On paper, his proposal seemed wildly ambitious. Should the ABC take the risk?

I met him. Face-to-face he quickly convinced me he had the talent, energy and determination to pull it off. It was, in part, a gut judgement.

I recommended that the ABC and Australian Film Commission take the risk.

The resulting series, Africa — Cape Town to Cairo, broadcast on the ABC in 1998, launched the career of Michael Davie, now an internationally respected documentary filmmaker.

During my years assessing for the AFC, I encountered many filmmakers whose talent emerged not through polished applications with all the right boxes ticked, but through direct engagement. Some lacked experience but compensated with passion, intelligence, originality and an unmistakable determination to get their films made.

Instinct matters.

The Hollywood "elevator pitch" exists for a reason.

Filmmaking is not principally a literary activity. Some talented filmmakers struggle to express themselves in written applications. Some are dyslexic, shy or inexperienced. Some communicate much better through images than prose. Some are eccentric. Some may even appear slightly mad.

And some of these people make extraordinary films.

I am not suggesting that every applicant should receive a face-to-face meeting. Clearly that would be impractical. I am asking whether shortlisted applicants should have the opportunity to meet and pitch to experienced filmmaker/assessors before significant funding decisions are made.

There will always be tension between bureaucratic certainty and creative risk-taking. But have we got the balance right?

Great films rarely emerge from bureaucratic certainty. They emerge from talented, unpredictable human beings whose gifts may not be obvious on paper.

My concern is that anonymous assessment, online applications and the proliferation of professional bureaucratic decision-making may make it harder for funding bodies to recognise precisely those filmmakers who don't fit comfortably into predetermined boxes.

Cost is sometimes advanced as an argument against face-to-face assessment.

Screen Australia invests tens of millions of dollars each year in documentary and drama production. Would allocating even a tiny percentage of those funds to pitch sessions for shortlisted applicants really be prohibitively expensive?

The question is not whether the old system was perfect. It wasn't.

Nor am I arguing that gut instinct is infallible. It certainly isn't. Goldman was right: nobody knows anything.

But perhaps acknowledging that uncertainty is precisely why human judgement should remain part of the process.

There are many reasons Australian films struggle to find audiences: limited marketing budgets, short theatrical runs, streaming competition and the difficulty of attracting attention in an overcrowded entertainment landscape.

But another question is worth asking:

Are our assessment and development processes themselves contributing to the problem?

Perhaps anonymous assessment is fairer. Perhaps it is more efficient. Perhaps confidentiality protects assessors from lobbying and pressure. These are legitimate arguments, and I would like to hear them debated.

But I keep returning to the young man with the terrible screenplay who walked into a room more than forty years ago and persuaded three sceptical assessors to take a $15,000 gamble on him.

His name was Yahoo Serious.

Would he get through today's gate?

If the answer is no, perhaps we have a problem worth talking about.

James Ricketson

30 October 2026

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CINEMA REBORN - November Newsletter - Ross Gibson, Adrian Martin, Ebrahim Golestan

CINEMA REBORN – NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER

Ross Gibson at the Melbourne CTEQ

Cinema Reborn’s great friend Ray Argall is a key figure in the world of restoring classic Australian titles. All up we’ve presented close to a dozen films that Ray through his company Piccolo Films has brought back into glowing new life. This includes Ray’s own AFI Award-winning film RETURN HOME which we screened in 2022. Among the films Ray has recently restored are a collection of the work of Sydney filmmaker, author and historian Ross Gibson (1956-2023).

Ray writes: “The Melbourne Cinematheque are screening 3 Ross Gibson films that we at Piccolo Films have recently restored. The program is screening on Wednesday 25th November. Of particular interest is CAMERA NATURA (30 mins) which is a fascinating study of Australian landscape and how it is represented in Cinema (Ross and his producer John Cruthers referred to it as a Pop Clip Essay Film) It’s full of archival film excerpts, many that we’ve been able to update with more recently created restoration works.

“Along with the second film WILD are newly accessed excerpts from BACK OF BEYOND which the NFSA has scanned and we’ve restored for these films. Absolutely gorgeous B&W film material directed by John Heyer, as you’re no doubt aware.

“DEAD TO THE WORLD is the feature film made by Ross with the Huzzah team and this is the never released Director’s Cut version, with remastered audio.

“John Cruthers produced all three films and will attend the screenings, as will I. Kathryn Bird is introducing them.

“So please share the info with any Melbourne Cinema Reborn patrons. NOTE that the ACMI and Melbourne Cinematheque website links don’t refer to these as newly presented restoration works - These are world premieres.”

Click on this link to read the introductory notes about Ross published on the Melbourne Cinematheque website.

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Adrian Martin on Fritz Lang

Cinema Reborn dedicated supporter Adrian Martin has uploaded a superb series of video lectures devoted to the master Fritz Lang.

Adrian writes: “Today on my Substack I posted the 1st video (with clips & screenshots) in a 5-part lecture course about the films of Fritz Lang. This first one (which runs for 53 mins) is free; for the rest, you’ll need to be a paid subscriber. Link in comments. There’s several years of stuff on my Substack now: texts, translations, videos – none of it reproducing what is on my website. Check it out, and help keep me afloat by becoming a paying subscriber!”

Click on this link to find the first lecture.

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Masters of Iranian Cinema launches Sydney screenings.

Get to know the filmmakers who shaped Iranian cinema in a new series presented by Persian Film Festival Australia’s CineCircle in partnership with UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.

Part of the festival’s ongoing program, Masters of Iranian Cinema invites students, film enthusiasts and the wider community to explore landmark works through their artistic, cultural and historical contexts.

The series opens with Ebrahim Golestan’s BRICK AND MIRROR (1965), a pioneering work that helped lay the foundations for the Iranian New Wave. When a Tehran taxi driver discovers a baby left in his cab, he and his girlfriend confront questions of care, responsibility and their future together. Combining striking black-and-white imagery with an intimate human story, Golestan’s debut feature offers a searching portrait of a society caught between compassion and indifference.

Join us for the opening screening and an opportunity to encounter a defining work of modern Iranian cinema.

Date and time: 7th November 3 PM

Venue: Building EGO2, UNSW Paddington Campus

Details and bookings click here.

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STAY TUNED FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT CINEMA REBORN’S PROGRAM FOR 2027

Please forward this email to any of your friends who may be interested in Cinema Reborn’s activities and ask them to subscribe direct or send an email to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com