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IF Awards put on hold due to ‘sponsorship competition’ and ‘lack of funding options’

The Inside Film Awards have been put on hold, it has been announced.

The awards, which work on a people’s choice system, as opposed to the show put on by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, which is industry voted, has cited numerous reasons for the postponement.

Factors include a difficult economic climate, sponsorship competition and a lack of funding options in NSW, according to IF.

The IF Awards received $120,000 from Screen Australia from the screen agency’s festivals and conferences funding program in 2010 and also received funding in 2011.

Key sponsors of the festival in 2011 included Event Cinemas, SBS, Jameson Whisky, Showtime Movie Channels and NSW Tourism as well as Screen Australia.

IF Awards group general manager Mark Kuban said: “I still firmly believe in a People’s Choice awards program for Australian film and television and the success of the IF Awards for more than a decade shows that the support is there from both industry and consumers.”

The awards have run for 13 years in Sydney.

Kuban added the revamped AACTA Awards which moved from Melbourne to Sydney, compounded the market uncertainty.

Kuban said: “I think for us it’s a good time to refocus and reinvent the awards to reflect the influence technology has had on film and television.”

The awards covered feature films, short films, documentaries, short animation and music videos.

Margaret Pomeranz, an IF Living Legend recipient said: “The If Awards disappearing off our film scene this year!?  It’s a tragedy.  They were wonderfully different, focussing not only on our film successes but on emerging talent like Andrew Dominik, Kath Shelper, Ryan Corr and Anthony Maras.”

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