Penelope Chai is an award-winning writer. Most recently, Penelope wrote on Turn Up the Volume for ABC Me and Matchbox Pictures, which premiered in 2023. Her other recent work includes writing on Stan’s 2021 drama series Eden and writing on Troppo, a crime series based on Candice Fox’s bestselling novel Crimson Lake, released on ABC and ABC iview in 2022.

Other credits include Other People’s Problems, an ABC series co-written with Jane Dickenson which premiered at Series Mania and screened at Berlinale; She was She, a short film which was shown at MIFF and received an AWGIE nominated for best short film; and Love & Fury for ABC, a documentary co-written with John Hughes, which earned an AWGIE nomination for best documentary screenplay.

Penelope is currently developing Empty Empire with writer/director Corrie Chen, a feature film set in an abandoned resort in Taiwan, as well as a high-concept series called Creature.

Cinderella Must Die, an action-adventure feature co-written with Matteo R. Bernardini, won the Australians in Film Gateway LA Screenwriting Fellowship (2017) and the Script Pipeline Grand Prize (2016). Mary, Mary, a dystopian sci-fi co-written with Adam Spellicy, won the Monte Miller AWGIE Award for Best Unproduced Screenplay (2016) and the John Hinde Award for Excellence in Science Fiction Writing for Best Unproduced Screenplay (2015).

Penelope is a recipient of a City of Yarra Arts Residency for The Punt Road Project (2014) and a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship (2013), and was part of Film Victoria’s Catapult Lab (2012).

Penelope has several other film and television projects in development.

For a full CV please contact info@rgm.com.au.