Kristen Dunphy Wins 2012 Foxtel Fellowship

30 August, 2012

Television writer Kristen Dunphy has been named as the recipient of the revered 2012 Foxtel Fellowship at the star-studded 45th Annual AWGIE Awards held on Friday 24 August at Doltone House, Sydney.

Presented by the Australian Writers’ Foundation (AWF) with the generous sponsorship of Foxtel, the esteemed $25,000 Fellowship recognises significant contribution to the Australian cultural landscape made by television writing and is awarded to a writer who has created a script that is impressive in its craft, scope and impact.

Foxtel’s CEO Richard Freudenstein said “We are proud to present Kristen with the 2012 Foxtel Fellowship in recognition of her exceptional contribution to the Australian television landscape over the last decade and a half. It’s through this kind of insightful writing for television that we are able to continually discuss, debate and develop what it means to be Australian. This Fellowship is one of a number of ongoing Foxtel sponsorships that support and honour Australian creative talent.”

Kristen Dunphy is a prolific writer for Australian television with over fifteen years experience and numerous dramas to her name including Wildside, Love is a Four Letter Word, G.P. and Heartland.

The Straits, which picked up the 2012 AWGIE Award for Television Mini Series – Original on Friday night, was written by a team of writers including Kristen.

The highly acclaimed SBS drama East West 101, the first of which earned an AWGIE award for Television Mini Series - Original in 2008, was co-written by Kristen. She is also credited for iconic Australian series such as Heartbreak High, Murder Call, Water Rats and an AFI award-winning episode of All Saints. In 2003, she received the Television Series AWGIE award for her episode of White Collar Blue and in 2004 wrote Sweet Science, a ‘Blackjack’ telemovie starring Colin Friels, Vince Colosimo and Chris Haywood.

Kristen Dunphy said "I'm honoured to receive the Foxtel Fellowship this year. With this initiative, Foxtel not only encourages Australian screenwriters, it invests in our skills as storytellers. Who better to initiate television concepts than writers themselves? Foxtel's financial support allows us to lift our heads out of the everyday business of our craft and use the rare and much-needed space to develop big ideas for the small screen."

Now in its sixth year, the fellowship is one of three partnership projects between Foxtel and the AWF. The partnership aims to recognise television’s important contribution to the Australian cultural landscape and the screenwriters who shape that contribution through their exceptional work.

The annual Foxtel Screenwriter’s Address, which will be given this year by Andrew Bovell on 24 October in Melbourne, and the Foxtel Oral History project, an ongoing series of interviews with significant writers who have built and shaped the screen industry, are the other Foxtel/AWF projects.