Written by Anya Tate-Manning as her 2016 Master of Arts folio at Victoria’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), the television drama, titled Waikouaiti Whalers, is described by its examiners as ‘exceptional … displaying an astute understanding of dramatic storytelling for the screen’, ‘gripping … exciting … visceral’ and containing ‘rich visual poetry’.
Named in honour of David Carson-Parker and supported by Jeremy Commons through the Victoria University Development Office, the $3,000 prize is awarded annually to an outstanding student in the Master of Arts (Scriptwriting) programme at the IIML.
Waikouaiti Whalers is the story of an extensive cast of characters, both pakeha and Māori who are all battling for a future in an unstable and insecure time. Māori are in the majority but that is soon to change. Real historical characters (Māori rangatira Tūhawaiki and Te Rauparaha, whaling entrepreneur Johnny Jones, missionary Frank Watkins, pirate Bully Hayes and soon-to-be-Governor William Hobson) share the story with fictional characters who flesh out a melting-pot world of whalers, ex-convicts and workers of various nationalities and ethnicities, including Pākehā-Māori.
Winner Anya Tate-Manning is also an actor and is currently performing in the stage show Hudson & Halls—for which she has been nominated as Best Supporting Actor in the upcoming Wellington Theatre Awards. Anya says her decision to apply for the Master of Arts course was prompted by the need to broaden her skillset to writing as well as acting, and her experience this year has given her a much bigger respect for writers and scripts.
On receiving the David Carson-Parker Embassy Prize, she says: “I was extremely surprised, especially because all of my classmates are so talented. It’s amazing to have validation at the end of doing something that you’re not sure you’re any good at.”
Examiners of the winning script describe it as ‘a graphic and thoroughly enjoyable series that demonstrates a confident writer’s hand to convey distinctive, intense visual imagery’ and observe ‘the clash of personal, political, class, religious and cultural objectives, set against the backdrop of a lawless New Zealand frontier town, provides a rich premise for drama.’
A second award, The Brad McGann Film Writing Award, has been awarded to Callum Fordyce for his feature film script Heroin and Dandelions.
Named in honour of the late Brad McGann (writer/director of In My Father’s Den) the award is worth $2,800.
Heroin and Dandelions is a post-apocalypse story of love and redemption set in a world where a pandemic has wiped out everyone but heroin addicts. When Brian meets Ella, she challenges him to pull himself out of his relentlessly self-destructive spiral.
Examiners described Heroin and Dandelions as having ‘a great premise’ and being ‘an accomplished, engaging script … pacey and witty, with genuine character-driven dialogue, a volatile action-driven plotline, and a real beating heart of drama at its core’.
Callum Fordyce says he has been ‘walking on air’ since winning the award.
“It’s so unexpected, and I couldn’t have done it without my classmates or my script supervisor Anne Kennedy. After a year of battling the doubt many writers have, this has been really self-affirming. I feel like I am in the right place.”