Kelly Burke

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Kelly Burke

Back yard brotherly pranks, comedic violence and schlock horror morphed into psychological terror when the Australian YouTubers and twins Danny and Michael Philippou unleashed their debut feature Talk To Me on the world two years ago. The supernatural thriller, about a group of Adelaide teens who get in over their heads while playing a twisted party game, was the surprise hit of 2023: made on a shoestring budget of just US$4.5m, it grossed almost US$100m at the global box office.

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Kelly Burke

Australian commercial television networks have all but given up on creating local children’s drama, advocates say, with just $1.75m spent on the genre across all commercial free-to-air networks in 2023-2024. But that’s $1.75m more than the previous year, according to the latest report card by the communications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma). In 2022-2023, not a single children’s television drama was made by any commercial network.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Kelly Burke

At least four judges for the Queensland literary awards have resigned over the past 24 hours, protesting against the State Library of Queensland’s decision to withdraw a prestigious $15,000 fellowship from First Nations writer Karen Wyld over comment she made last year about the Gaza conflict.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Kelly Burke

The chair of Creative Australia is departing the organisation, with the arts minister, Tony Burke, announcing on Friday Robert Morgan’s intention to retire. The First Nations playwright and creative director Wesley Enoch will serve as the acting chair and is expected to replace Morgan. Morgan presided over the controversial board meeting in February that voted to withdraw the 2026 Venice Biennale commission from Lebanese-Australian arts Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino.

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Kelly Burke

More than a decade after attracting international acclaim for his debut The Boat, Nam Le has won book of the year at the NSW Literary awards for his follow-up, a book-length poem titled 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. Le won the $10,000 top gong as well as the $30,000 NSW multicultural award category, but missed out on the Kenneth Slessor prize for poetry, which went to Lebanese-Palestinian writer Hasib Hourani for another book-length poem, Rock Flight.