A year in the making, Adelaide Film Festival and Wakefield Press are thrilled to announce the release of a new book honouring 2015 Don Dunstan Award winner, Andrew Bovell.
Andrew Bovell: The Alchemy of Collaboration is a book of ‘love letters’ to the acclaimed Australian screenwriter and playwright. It includes a major essay by writer Christos Tsiolkas, and contributions from a galaxy of stars of screen and stage – Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Patricia Cornelius, Tony Ayres, Jan Chapman, Lally Katz, Anthony La Paglia, Geoffrey Rush, Chris Drummond, Eddie Perfect and Stephen Page.
Adelaide Film Festival CEO and Director Amanda Duthie, the book’s editor, spent months gathering contributions from across the world, keeping the book a secret from Andrew. Amanda and Anthony La Paglia presented Andrew with the book at the Festival’s opening on Thursday, after receiving the Don Dunstan Award – recognising Andrew’s contribution to the Australian screen industry.
Andrew has enriched Australian screens and stages with his writing for more than 20 years – renowned for his AWGIE award-winning plays When the Rain Stops Falling, Secret River and Speaking in Tongues (1996). It was from this latter play that Andrew adapted his stirring script for Lantana, which earned him his first AFI Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2001.
He also took home the IF Award for Best Script, and was named Screenwriter of the Year at the 2003 London Critics Circle Film Awards. His work is unflinchingly Australian, as felt in the stark drama of Head On (1998), which he cowrote with director Ana Kokkinos.
Andrew has enjoyed further success abroad, with titles like crime drama Edge of Darkness (2010), starring Mel Gibson, and espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man (2014), directed by Anton Corbijn and based on the novel by John le Carré. When he’s not travelling the world for work, Andrew calls McLaren Vale home. It’s there that he manages his demanding slate of scripts for stage and screen, while the world waits for the fruits of his labour.
The book – of which Geoffrey Rush suggested be titled “All’s Bovell That Ends Bovell” – is available now from www.adelaidefilmfestival.org and www.wakefieldpress.com.au – and soon from bookstores everywhere.
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