Arts In 30

Ce and Sky share their favourite picks of 2025.Movies mentioned includes Freaky Tales, KPop Demon Hunters, Twinless, Sirat, The Secret Agent, Sinners, One Battle After Another, and One of Them Days.Music mentioned includes Kathryn Joseph - We Were Made Prey, Ethel Cain - Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You; Perfume Genius - live & Glory; Billy Woods - Golliwog; Backxwash - Only Dust Remains; Abel Selaocoe - Hymns of Bantu; Ganavya; Jaime Martin & the SSO - Bolero.Theatre mentioned includes the Siegfried and Roy opera, Hadestown, Beetlejuice, and Scout Boxall's God's Favourite.And in poetry: Evelyn Araluen's The Rot and The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr & Safdar Ahmed.

Last week, the federal government passed legislation that will require video streaming services with more than 1 million Australian subscribers to invest 10 percent of their Australian expenditure or 7.5 percent of their gross Australian revenue into new Australian productions each year. The bill passed with the support of the Greens, and as part of the negotiations, the ABC will also receive $50 million in additional funding over 3 years to spend on locally made children’s and drama content. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, arts spokeswoman for The Greens, joins us to talk about the bills and about Federal arts priorities in 2026.And reports suggest that the State Library of Victoria will cut its reference librarians from 25 to 10, reduce its publicly available computers and remove their children’s and family engagement officers in a new round of reforms. The Library has pushed back against the reporting.Gideon Haigh, award-winning writer and passionate advocate for the library, shares his perspectives on the changes, the messages he's heard from current and former staff, and mounts the case for the importance of the state institution.Our track of the week is Evensong, part 1 by JJJJJerome Ellis

Wicked: For Good has launched to a big opening weekend, taking in $226 million US in worldwide box office revenue, a substantial improvement on the already successful first film. But that makes it something of an outlier for Hollywood this year. Industry experts have pointed out that - accounting for inflation - the Summer tentpole season in the US had lower numbers than we’ve seen in decades.Is this just an off year? Or the sign of a bigger problem for an industry already grappling with the rise of streaming and the after-effects of Covid? Scott Mendelson from The Outside Scoop explains what it all means.And Peyton Reed, who has been part of the Marvel cinematic universe in recent years, is in Australia for the Brisbane International Film Festival, where he’ll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bring It On.Our track of the week is Obscure Things by Will Hearn

Arts degrees are expected to cost $55,000 next year, but despite the rising cost to students, we’re seeing restructures, closures, and redundancies at one university after another. And the strain between the tertiary sector and the arts has been a consistent theme throughout 2025, with Meanjin, the Bendigo Writers Festival and MUMA all making headlines.What’s gone wrong? What’s the impact for both universities and the arts? And is there a path back to better news? Distinguished Professor George Williams, vice-chancellor and president, Western Sydney University, and Professor Clare Wright, historian, author, and academic at La Trobe University share their perspectives.Our track of the week is Watch Over Me by Bernard Fanning (feat Kasey Chambers & Clare Bowditch).

The Federal Government has announced plans for a local content quota for streaming video services in Australia. Any service with more than one million subscribers will be required to spend a percentage of their revenue on Australian content. Julianne Schultz and Guy Morrow take us through the details and consider whether the policy goes far enough.And Hungarian-British author David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his latest novel, Flesh. We speak with The Book Show's Sarah L’Estrange about the novel and hear some of her conversation with Szalay.Our track of the week is Drawbacks by Dust

The board of the Australian Design Centre has announced that the centre will close on June 30, 2026, unless additional funding can be secured. The call comes after the centre lost out on significant ongoing funding from both Federal and State governments. CEO Lisa Cahill discusses the ADC’s options going forward.Ahead of International Day for People With A Disability, we’re looking at accessibility in the arts - not just for audiences, but for performers and crew. How have things changed, what’s working, what isn’t, why oes it matter, and what exciting projects are on the horizon? Chaos Fae and Frankie Dyson Reilly from Vulcana Circus and Genevieve Clay-Smith from Bus Stop Films share their experience.Our track of the week is Rocking Horse by Lauren Tsamouras and Tom Avgenicos.

The Federal Government has announced that it won't institute a Text and Data Mining exception on copyright, an idea raised as a possibility in the Productivity Commission's recent report. Arts organisations across Australia are hailing the decision, and Nicholas Pickard from APRA-AMCOS discusses the implications of the announcement for the music sector.A number of prominent Australian artists have expressed their dismay at their songs being used as part of recent anti-immigration rallies. Bob Brown, co-author of Give Me A Home Among the Gum Trees, shares his perspective.And Hector Aristizabal endured torture at the hands of the regime at a young age. He lost his brothers young, one to HIV/AIDS and one to the paramilitary, and left Colombia for his own safety. But rather than hiding away, Hector turned to theatre to tell his story and help other people tell theirs as part of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Hector takes us into that practice, a community based form of education that uses theatre as a form of healing and conflict resolution ahead of workshops across the country.Our track of the week is New Age by Sleepazoid

After a three-year pilot program, Ireland has made a basic income scheme for artists a permanent policy, citing not only increased productivity and mental health, but a positive return on investment for the money spent. Moira Fleming, from Ireland's National Campaign for the Arts shares details about the scheme and Dr Jo Caust looks at the Australian context and why a basic income is worth considering, but remains unlikely here.And over the last decade, there's been an increasing demand on arts organisations to take a stand on matters of cultural policy, with several finding their way to the front line of the culture wars for reasons that have little to do with their actual artistic output. So how should these institutions handle this responsibility? Samuel Cairnduff shares lessons from his new book, Harmonising Cultural Leadership in Professional Orchestras.Our track of the week is Take Me To The River by Emma Donovan

A “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.” That’s how the jury for the Nobel Prize for Literature described the work of Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai, who was awarded the 2025 prize. For those of us who haven’t had a chance to dive into the novels, Julian Murphet, Jury Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Adelaide, is here to give us the cliff notes. And from funding decisions to censorship, we report a lot about how politics impacts the arts. This week, we turn our gaze the other way. How do the arts impact policy, politics, and the way we see the world. Freyja Gillard from the Environmental Film Festival, Claire G Coleman from The Centre for Reworlding, and Angharad Wynne-Jones from Creative Climate share how artists are working to change our perspective on the environment.Our track of the week is Track 3 from Gift - Our Breath of Life by William Barton and Omega Ensemble.Headlines include:Tasmanian government cuts funding to TAFE arts coursesHuman Rights Watch refuses donations from Riyadh Comedy Festival performersCreative Australia announces $1.6 million in new commissionsJulia Gillard to chair the jury of the 2026 Prize for Women's FictionLargest ever international touring exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art delayed by US Government shutdownDiane Keaton dies at age 78

The Riyadh Comedy festival continues this week and while comedians like Louis CK and Bill Burr defended their decision to perform, many of their colleagues and fans have been forthright in their critiques. The festival is one small part of a major investment in the arts by Saudi Arabia as part of their Vision 2030 strategy. Andrew Leber, assistant professor of Political Science at Tulane University explains the background behind Vision 2030 and explores whether the initial international response matters or whether the Saudi regime is playing a longer game.And, as part of mental health week, Beci Orpin and Maria Bradshaw talk about the workshop and series of murals at the Women's Recovery Network, a mental health ward in Melbourne.Our track of the week is Beautiful Strangers by Mavis Staples.

Two major prizes — The Prime Minister's Literary Award and the Queensland Literary Awards — have announced their choices over the last week, adding an exciting new pile of books to the must-read pile that we're all trying to work our way through. We meet two of the authors who are being recognised: Krystal Sutherland, winner of the Prime Minister's Award for Young Adult Literature for The Invocations; and Laura Elvery, winner of the People's Choice Award at the Queensland Literary Awards for Nightingale.And what impact does sound have on the way we experience a generated world? Pete Ward is the Audio Director for MachineGames, who were behind one of the biggest games of the last year: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. He's also one of the guests at High Score, a conference at the Melbourne International Games Week this weekend.Our track of the week is Big Feet, Bigger Shoes by Abby Wallace.

Last week, ABC chose to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! from broadcast, after criticism from the Chairman of the FCC. The network has now reversed that decision and Kimmel will be back this week, but the decision has led to protests, boycotts, and a lot of concerns about the state of free speech in the US. David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, explores why ABC initially folded so quickly in the face of the Administration's concern.And reporting emerged last week that Melbourne University Press had commissioned an independent report into the sustainability of Meanjin in February this year. In July, they received the recommendations, which did not include shuttering the publication. By September, it was announced that Meanjin would shut down at the end of the year. Nick Feik, who's been writing about the decision for Crikey, breaks down his reporting.Our track of the week is Wreck by Neko Case.Headlines this week include:Sally Rooney chooses not to collect literary award over concern of arrestIsraeli Film Academy Awards Face Government Defunding After Anti-War Movie 'The Sea' Wins Top PrizeFrance selects It Was Just An Accident as its Oscar entry

The state of television and streaming is perhaps more precarious than it’s been since before the “streaming revolution”... so what do this year’s Emmys tell us about which way the industry is going? ABC News' Velvet Winter takes us through the stats and the pleasant surprises. Arts Project Australia has been around for 5 decades now: the first full-time art studio in Australia for artists with an intellectual disability. It’s launched the careers of several internationally regarded artists. Now they’ve launched a big new commissioning series: Limitless. This series allows APA artists to take on works of a major scale - with the first exhibition, Embodied, being a year in the making. Sky Kirkham headed out to APA headquarters to meet the team behind the project.