Two Western Australian women have been awarded the coveted $750,000 West Coast Visions 2022 production grant to produce the debut feature film Birthright.
Birthright, which will be produced by Western Australian film maker Cody Greenwood next year, was written by Zoe Pepper, a Western Australian writer and director for film, TV and theatre.
Birthright is a tale of revenge featuring a character called Cory who loses his job, gets evicted from his rental home and with his pregnant wife Jasmine must move back in with his parents. During the stay Cory becomes fixated on his parents’ wealth. Writer and director Zoe Pepper says she went wild with the black comedy script and has described it as a film that explores intergenerational inequality between Baby Boomers and their Millennial children.
Zoe Pepper and Cody Greenwood join the ranks of previous West Coast Visions recipients, including most recently Renée Webster, Tania Chambers and Judi Levine for How to Please a Woman which is winning hearts across Australia with cinema-goers flocking to see it in the first three weeks.
As stated by Culture and Arts Minister David Templeman:
“The selection of Birthright for the 2022 West Coast Visions $750,000 production grant continues the State’s impressive track record of supporting a local Western Australian director to realise their debut feature film vision on the big screen.
“A previous recipient of this title was How to Please a Woman, which has delighted audiences across Australia and shown off WA locations such as Leighton Beach in Fremantle.
“Birthright is set to head into production in Western Australia in 2023, once again showcasing our State’s wonderful landscapes and its creative screen writing and directing talent. We look forward to seeing the impact the film has on audiences at the cinema and in home theatres. Congratulations to Zoe and Cody on landing this highly coveted grant.”
Background:
- Zoe Pepper is a Western Australian writer and director for film, TV and theatre. Her screen credits include web series Lift and The Big Spaghetti, for which she won the ADG Award for Best Direction in an Online Comedy Series. Zoe was also selected for Screenwest’s prestigious Feature Navigator program and has participated in international feature lab Attagurl.
- Cody Greenwood is the founder of Rush Films. Her latest feature documentary, Under the Volcano, premiered at SXSW and was nominated for Best Australian Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival. She also produced documentary Girl Like You, which premiered on the ABC and won Best Documentary at the WA Screen Culture Awards. In 2021, she was named a recipient of Screenwest’s Breaking the Celluloid Ceiling, an initiative designed to support producers to create bold work for film and television.
