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A son receives the piano-playing skills of his world-renowned father, a tennis player acquires the ability to play like Roger Federer… what sounds like a dream is possible in the fictional world of “Batesian”. And where’s the catch? “You tell us”, say kino5, a group of independent filmmakers from Vienna, Austria: “We’ve only taken the first step. Now, it’s up to everyone to shape the world of Batesian!”

It’s called collaborative filmmaking and Batesian is another example in a series of online film projects that call on the internet community to contribute their ideas. Yet Batesian takes it one step further. In addition to discussing the potential side-effects of the skills transfers in their online forum, scriptwriters can even send entire stories and apply to direct one of the episodes of the anthology film.

After being selected by a professional jury, the six international directors will shoot the six episodes of the film in Vienna in 2012. “For years we’ve been bringing together international filmmakers to produce short films. The results have always exceeded the expectations. Now we want to take it a step further”, explain the kino5 crew.

And what’s the goal? “At the end of the day, we just want to make a great movie.. and to give independent filmmakers the chance to make a feature film, together with us.”

The ADG Awards will be held in May next year and will be part of special anniversary celebrations of the ADG’s 30th anniversary.

To be eligible for the Awards, all work must have screened publicly for the first time between July 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011, except for student films where the project needs only to have been completed within these dates.

Award applicants must be financial ADG members for the 2011 – 2012 year. Membership details available at: www.adg.org.au

The recently appointed General Manager of the Australian Directors’ Guild, Kingston Anderson, said: “Our 30th anniversary gives the ADG an extra reason to celebrate the exceptional work of Australian directors over the past year. The 2012 Awards will be a great opportunity to highlight, applaud and promote these great works to Australian and international audiences and I encourage member directors to enter.”

The 18 categories in the 2012 ADG Awards are: 1. Feature Film 2. Telemovie 3. Animation 4. Documentary Standalone 5. Documentary Feature 6. Documentary Series 7. TV Drama Series 8. TV Mini Series 9. TV Drama Serial 10. TV Comedy 11. TV Reality / light entertainment 12. TV Children’s 13. Cross Platform project 14. Original online project 15. TVC 16. Short film 17. Music video 18. Student

The rescheduling of the ADG Awards to May next year will enable them to coincide with the INPUT 2012 television conference, being held for the first time in Australia in its 25 year history. Some 800 delegates, including 300 international guests, will attend INPUT 2012.

The ADG has partnered with INPUT in recent years through hosting a showcase of television programs featured in the international INPUT conference.

To submit your entry and for further information to the ADG awards: www.adg.org.au/awards.aspx or contact the ADG office on (02) 9555 7045 or events@adg.org.au.

For Media enquiries: please contact Tracey Mair, TM Publicity Ph: 0419 221 493 E: traceym@tmpublicity.com. The ADG Awards are made possible through the generous assistance of Screen Australia, Screen NSW, Screen Tasmania, South Australian Film Corporation and Efilm.