A science-fiction horror movie about Australian wildlife on the attack and a documentary about the training of a local dragon boat racing crew are among the 11 projects to share in $100,000 of funding through the ACT Screen Arts Fund in 2015.
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On Thursday, the Arts Minister Joy Burch announced the successful applicants for the fund, which is part of the ACT Arts Fund and is managed by ScreenACT.
The filmmakers received amounts ranging from $2500 to $16,446 for documentaries, feature films and television series.
Ms Burch said, "The ACT Screen Arts Fund provides opportunities for local screen artists to move into new stages of their development, no matter what stage of their career they are at."
Megan Watson, who received $7894 towards production and mentoring to complete her first long-form documentary, Dragon Ladies. It follows a group of Canberra women aged from 50 to 70 as they train eight times a week during the Canberra winter to prepare for the World Club Crew dragon boat championships.
"I like real-life stories - people are very interesting and everyone's got a story to tell."
Ronin Films' Andrew Pike would act as a consulting producer - "helping me stay on track and making me aware of any pitfalls I should look out for" - and she would also work with a professional editor to shape the footage she shot in 2014.
Christian Doran received funding for script development for two projects. He said Luminous - a story about a man who clones his best friend's wife - raised some interesting philosophical questions.
"Who deserves to live? ... If we create life, do we get to take it away? What's the line?"
He had been working on the script for about three years and estimated it would cost about $1 million to produce.
Terror Australis would cost more - about $7 million - as it deals with the inhabitants of the international space station after it crashes in the Australian bush.
"They get infected with an alien virus and the bush animals can smell it. They get attacked by waves of spiders, snakes, sharks, crocodiles and jellyfish."
Doran made a "no-budget" feature in 2002 and since then has made many short films and worked in various capacities on local features. He produced Me and My Mates Vs the Zombie Apocalypse which will be released in May.
He said the ACT government's support for local film was "fantastic" and had brought in productions such as The Code, on which he worked as an assistant location manager.
"I learned a lot in the process."
A full list of 2015 ACT Screen Arts Fund recipients is available from arts.act.gov.au.
