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Veteran writer and executive producer David Ogilvy has been appointed head of Beyond.s new scripted drama division, marking the company's return to the genre after 11 years.

The former ABC executive will develop scripted content across a broad range of genres for local and international markets, working with emerging and established writing, directing and producing talent.

Beyond's last drama series was Stingers, which wrapped production in 2004 after eight seasons on the Nine Network.

Ogilvy joins from ABC TV where he was commissioning editor of fiction since 2012. His credits as Ep at the ABC include The Code, Rake, Anzac Girls, Janet King, Hiding, Mabo, An Accidental Soldier, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars and The Straits.

Previously he worked as a writer and script producer on a broad range of adult and children.s drama.. His writing credits include East West 101, The Strip, Young Lions, Lockie Leonard, Dance Academy, Outriders, Blue Water High and Escape from Jupiter.

Anzac Girls. Sara West and Mystery Road.s Samara Weaving head the cast of Bad Girl, writer-director Fin Edquist.s psychological thriller which starts shooting in Perth on August 31.

West plays 16-year-old Amy, the title character who has to fight for her adoptive parents when her new best friend Chloe (Weaving) tries to supplant her.

Playing the parents are Felicity Price, who stars in Joel Edgerton.s Us thriller The Gift and her partner Kieran Darcy-Smith.s upcoming Western By Way of Helena, and Benjamin Winspear (House of Hancock, Rake, The Babadook).

The film marks a departure in tone for Edquist, who scripted the animated family pics Maya the Bee and Blinky Bill: The Movie, which opens in cinemas on September 10.

The producers are Steve Kearney (Oddball, My Mistress), Bruno Charlesworth (Good Vibrations, The Extra) and Tenille Kennedy. This is the feature producing debut for Kennedy, who co-produced three...

When Matt Levett was nominated for this year.s Heath Ledger Scholarship along with 17 other rising talents, the actor didn.t fancy his chances amongst what he described as a .an intimidating. line-up.

So he was both stunned and stoked to win the award presented on Monday night Us time in Los Angeles.

The 2009 Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts (Waapa) graduate says the $US10,000 cash prize will enable him to further his ambitions in Hollywood.

.It will give me the ability to stay longer and give me a foot in the door,. says Levett, who first went to the Us last September/October, when he signed with the Gersh Agency. The runners-up are fellow Waapa graduate Emilie Cocquerel and Lily Sullivan, who each get a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles and a scholarship to attend Masterclasses at Screenwise Film & TV School for actors in Sydney.

On behalf of the judges,...

Rising young actors who.ve appeared in Unbroken, The Water Diviner, Deadline Gallipoli, Anzac Girls and The Code are among the finalists for the 7th annual Heath Ledger Scholarship.

In all 20 are in contention for the prize which includes two round-trip flights to L.A., a two-year scholarship at the Stella Adler Academy, $5,000 worth of visa and immigration services and $10,000 cash.

Presented by Australians in Film, the winner will be announced in Los Angeles on June 1. Two runners up will each receive a round-trip ticket to La and a scholarship to attend masterclasses at Screenwise Film & TV School for actors in Sydney.

Previous recipients were Cody Fern (The Last Time I Saw Richard), James Mackay (The Dressmaker, The Tomorrow People), Anna McGahan (Anzac Girls, House Husbands), Ryan Corr (The Water Diviner, Wolf Creek 2), Bella Heathcote (Dark Shadows, The Rewrite) and Oliver Ackland (Party Tricks, Blinder).

The finalists were selected...

Aacta-award winner Blake Ayshford believes writers in the UK are more valued than they are in Australia.

That.s one reason why the screenwriter is heading to the UK in a few months to pursue the opportunity to work on an eclectic bunch of projects set in Europe, the Middle East and South America.

Not that Ayshford, whose credits include The Code, Devil.s Playground, An Accidental Soldier, The Straits and Crownies, is turning his back on Oz.

He intends to work part-time in the UK while juggling several Australian projects including adaptations of two popular Australian novels for the ABC. He's written an episode of The Beautiful Lie, a modern retelling of Tolstoy.s Anna Karenina to be produced by Endemol Australia.s John Edwards and Imogen Banks for the public broadcaster.

Ayshford, who won an Aacta award as one of the producers of Devil.s Playground, shared with...

A scene from The Fan..

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Tim Winton.s The Turning was named best feature at the 26th annual Wa Screen Awards presented in Perth on Monday night.

Drift was recognised for best actor Myles Pollard, Tim Duffy.s screenplay and for Glenn Dillon.s sound.

Emily Rose Brennan.s performance in the online series The Legend of Gavin Tanner: Episode 5 - The Big Fight, earned her the best actress award. The comedy also took the People.s Choice Award for the Mad Kids team of writer/star Matt Lovkis, director Henry Inglis and producer Lauren Elliott.

Nicholas Dunlop was honoured as best director for Comic Book Heroes, the ABC documentary about the quest by Australian comic book creators Wolfgang Byslma and Skye Walker Ogden to penetrate the Us market by travelling to Comic-Con International in San Diego; it also won best factual TV production.

Antony Webb's The Fan...

Female directors have dominated the Documentary Feature category of the 2014 Australian Directors Guild Awards, whilst Home & Away has muscled out any other competition for TV Drama Serial. The nominees, announced this morning, cover 16 categories across film, television, multiplatform, music and advertising. This year has seen the Adg receive more entries than ever before, making the judging process a difficult one. .In the TV drama category, the documentary feature category and the feature film categories especially, the caliber is really high so that.s why there are so many nominations,. says Adg Executive Director Kingston Anderson. .The judges take it very seriously and fully understand the recognition the awards can bring.. In the feature film category, Baz Luhrmann was unsurprisingly nominated for box office hit The Great Gatsby alongside strong contenders Kim Mordaunt (The Rocket), Ivan Sen (Mystery Road), Jonathan Teplitzky (The Railway Man) and Zak Hilditch, whose film These Final Hours,...

DirecTV has bought Us rights to Playmaker Media.s The Code, a six-part series about two brothers who stumble across information about a new technology - information that people in the highest political echelons will kill to keep secret.

ABC-tv commissioned the thriller, which stars Dan Spielman (An Accidental Soldier, Offspring), Ashley Zukerman (The Slap, Rush), Adam Garcia (Coyote Ugly, Bootmen), David Wenham (Top of the Lake, Killing Time), Lucy Lawless (Spartacus), Aden Young (I Frankenstein, Rectify), Chelsie Preston Crayford (Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Underbelly: Razor), Adele Perovic (SLiDE), Dan Wyllie (Rake, Puberty Blues), Aaron Pedersen (Jack Irish, City Homicide), and Paul Tassone (Underbelly).

The show was created by Shelley Birse and written by Birse, Blake Ayshford and Justin Monjo, directed by Shawn Seet (Love Child, Underbelly, Mystery of a Hansom Cab) and produced by Playmaker.s David Maher and David Taylor and Birse.

Developed through the Scribe Initiative...

If the 3rd annual Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards could be categorised as a David vs Goliath battle between The Rocket and The Great Gatsby, Goliath is the hands-down winner.

Baz Luhrmann.s opulent romantic drama won six awards tonight, for best film, director, adapted screenplay, lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio, supporting actor Joel Edgerton and supporting actress Elizabeth Debicki.

That.s in addition to the six awards in craft categories plus the Aacta award for outstanding achievement in visual effects bestowed on Luhrmann.s film on Tuesday.

Kim Mordaunt's The Rocket, which had 12 nominations versus 14 for Gatsby, had to be content with just one trophy, for Mordaunt.s original screenplay.

The outcome is likely to reignite the debate about the near-impossibility of comparing a lavishly-mounted 3D film financed by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures, which cost $160 million, with an independently-funded Lao-set film from a first-time director budgeted at about $2 million.

The Great Gatsby dominated. Aacta.s technical and short films awards today, collecting gongs in all six craft categories for which it was nominated, plus the Aacta award for outstanding achievement in visual effects.

The co-production Top of the Lake bagged two TV trophies while Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys, created by Tony Ayres, was named best children.s TV series.

The TV documentary prize went to Redesign My Brain, which explores the revolutionary new science of brain plasticity, written and directed by Paul Scott and produced by Isabel Perez and Scott for ABC TV.

Writer-director Nick Verso's The Last Time I Saw Richard, produced by John Molloy, was honoured as best short fiction film. Developed and funded through Screen Australia.s Springboard program, the short is a prequel to the upcoming feature film Boys In The Trees, tracing the friendship between two teenagers in a mental health clinic in...

Tickets are selling fast for the 46th Annual Awgie Awards, to be held in Melbourne on October 4.

To be hosted by writer, comedian and singer Sammy J, the ceremony will honour the achievements made by Australian writers for performance. The Awgie Awards are the only Australian awards judged solely by writers on the basis of the script . the writer's intention . rather than the finished production.

"The Awgies are the highlight of the year for us and a unique chance to celebrate the oft-unsung but stellar work created by Australian writers of the script," says Awg.s President and Academy Award nominee Jan Sardi..

.It.s a night that really just celebrates the importance of story and storytelling. And that.s what sets us apart from other animals in the end, the ability to tell stories..

Sardi says the slate of nominated work is once again a strong one.

.It.s...

ABC telemovie An Accidental Soldier looks set to be sold to multiple territories after London-based Dcd Rights acquired the international distribution rights.

Dcd Rights will introduce the film to international buyers at the Mipcom market in Cannes which runs October 7-10. The firm has an impressive track record in selling Australian dramas and comedies including Rake, The Slap, Mr & Mrs Murder, The Straits, The Strange Calls and A Moody Christmas.

Directed by Rachel Ward and produced by Goalpost Pictures and Taylor Media, An Accidental Soldier starred Dan Spielman, Marie Brunel, Bryan Brown and Julia Zemiro.

Set during WW1 and scripted by Blake Ayshford and based on the book Silent Parts by John Charalambous, it.s the tale of a romance between a young Australian baker who deserted the front line and a grieving French woman who risks her life by sheltering him from the authorities.

Meanwhile, the third season of...

The question of what Martha Coleman would do after she steps down at the end of the year as Screen Australia's Head of Development has been answered.

Coleman will produce film and TV content for Goalpost Pictures, which made The Sapphires, Closed for Winter, Clubland and the upcoming Felony, starting in January.

Thus Coleman returns to her roots in production. Before she joined Screen Australia in 2009 she spent seven years in the UK as Head of Development at Icon Entertainment International, Head of Creative Affairs at Material Entertainment and as a consultant producer.

At Material Entertainment she was executive producer on the UK box-office hit Run Fat Boy, Run, which starred Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton and Hank Azaria.

In 1998 she produced director John Curran.s debut feature Praise, which starred Sacha Horler, Peter Fenton, Joel Edgerton and Marta Dusseldorp.

In May she revealed she had told Screen Australia CEO...

Matlida and Bryan Brown..

Matilda Brown and her father Bryan Brown have collaborated on Lessons from the Grave, a series of short films that will premiere on ABC1 in September.

The pair plays a fictional daughter and father, Bonnie and Douglas, who live in a remote country area. He wins $50 million in the lottery but has a heart attack and dies. Douglas is unwilling to move onto the next world until he knows Bonnie will be Ok and stays as a ghost to teach her some lessons in life.

Matilda wrote the scripts and produced and directed the 3-minute episodes. Her dad financed the production and it was shot on her Nsw country farm. Each segment will screen before the 7 pm news.

She told If, .The idea came from having a coffee with my dad and he said .you should write something for us to do together when neither of us is doing anything.

We return with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting recent independent horror news sent our way. This week’s feature includes a trailer for The Cabining, details on All Hallows’ Eve, and much more:

The Cabining: “Todd and Bruce, a hapless screenwriting team, get one last shot at success thanks to Todd’s wealthy stepdad, Serge. If they pen a worthy horror script, Serge will fund the entire project. But there is one condition – the script must be complete in two weeks. With the deadline looming and no fresh ideas, Todd and Bruce head to Shangri-La, a serene artist’s retreat, with the hope that the peace and company of fellow artists will inspire greatness… or, failing greatness, at least enough for straight-to-dvd. Shangri-La proves to be anything but serene, as the artists die off one by one, seemingly by accident. Bruce convinces Todd to soak in this...

Bryan Brown is set to join the cast of telepic An Accidental Soldier, playing an Australian soldier in France during World War I, reports Deadline. Rachel Ward, the helmer's wife is helming the project which marks their first collaboration since Beautiful Kate back in 2009. Pic is based on "Silent Parts," a novel by John Charalambous, and stars Dan Spielman as the title character who enlisted at the age of 40 in 1918. He served as a baker, in fear of battle. Also in the cast of the film produced by Kylie du Fresne of Goalpost Pictures and Sue Taylor of Taylor Media-produced film is Marie Bunel playing a French woman who harbored him.