The 65th Sydney Film Festival has awarded THE HEIRESSES, the debut feature of Paraguayan filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi,the $60,000 Sydney Film Prize, out of a selection of 12 Official Competition films.
Sydney filmmaker Ben Lawrence was awarded the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary’s $10,000 cash prize for GHOSTHUNTER, about a Western Sydney security guard and part time ghost hunter searching for his absent father. It is scheduled for a wider release by Madman Films.
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The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films saw the $7000 cash prize for the Dendy Live Action Short Award going to SECOND BEST, directed by Alyssa McClelland, a dark comedy about the power of identical twin sister and their unbreakable bond.
Tom Noakes’ NURSERY RHYMES took out the $7000 Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director, with Special Mention going to Alison James’ Judas Collar. The $5000 Yoram Gross Animation Award went to Andrew Goldsmith and Bradley Slabe’s Lost and Found, with Larissa Behrendt’s Barbara receiving a Special Mention.
The Event Cinemas Australian Short Screenplay Award, a $5,000 prize for the best short screenwriting, was awarded to Indigenous screenwriter Tyson Mowarin of UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. Renée Marie Petropoulos (Tangle and Knots), Lucy Knox (An Act of Love) and recently-announced recipients of the 2018 Lexus Australia Short Film Fellowship Curtis Taylor and Nathan Mewett (Yulubidyi – Until the End), all received Special Mentions.
The $10,000 Sydney-UNESCO City of Film Award, bestowed by Create NSW to a trail-blazing NSW-based screen practitioner, went to Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (We Don’t Need A Map, SFF 2017 Opening Night Film). The Award was presented by his friend and Archibald Prize-winning painter and activist Ben Quilty.
