Snowtown, The Cup & Heartbeat Away shortlisted for Academy Awards
Announced at last night’s Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) launch, the inaugural Samsung AACTA Awards will be held in Sydney in January 2012.
The move to January is an effort by the AFI to be more in line with the international awards season.
The ceremony has moved to Sydney as part of a three-year commitment, after being in Melbourne for the past ten years.
Tania Chambers, CEO of Screen NSW said, “It’s my pleasure to welcome the AFI back to Sydney. We’re very proud to have the awards back for the next three years.”
With the ceremony held at the Sydney Opera House, the move is hoped to position the awards as a global event. The Nine Network will, for the seventh consecutive year, broadcast the ceremony.
A shortlist of feature film awards, based upon a two step voting model, has revealed The 23 films in competition at this year’s awards: A Heartbeat Away, Big Momma’s Boy, Blame, Burning Man, Caught Inside, The Dragon Pearl, Face to Face, Griff the Invisible, Here I Am, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole, Mad Bastards, Oranges and Sunshine, RED DOG, Red Hill, Sanctum, Sleeping Beauty, Snowtown, Summer Coda, The Cup, The Eye of the Storm, The Hunter, The Loved Ones, and Wasted on the Young.
Geoffrey Rush, named at the launch as founding president if the AACTA, unveiled the new statuette, explaining it took inspiration from the Southern Cross, it was designed by multi award winning sculptor Ron Gomboc, and in part crafted from Australian tiger iron, with the body cast in 22 karat gold.
Damian Trewhella, AFI/AACTA CEO said, “The statuette, and the story it tells, is something we want all Australians to be proud of as it becomes the Australian Academy’s international symbol of screen arts excellence.”
As Bettie Davis famously suggested the American Academy looked like her uncle Oscar, Rush put forward his uncle Ron as an option, before democratically turning the discussion to facebook.
For further information, visit aacta.org
The AFI’s were always a load of rubbish, no one outside the Aussie film industry really cared what awards they gave to each other. *YAWN*
I don’t think changing the name to “Australian Academy” is going to make any difference. Trying to duplicate the US Academy awards is laughable – only two of those films have had (limited) success overseas.
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Oh Dean…why so negative?? I think its a great thing to try and revamp these awards. Its a strange thing that if awards shows are good people will watch them and in turn they will hear about some truly good australian films. And Dean, guess what happens next….they go and watch them…OMG!!
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There’s still the perennial conflict between AFI’s function to promote film and its need, prestige-wise for the staff and for funding, to promote itself. Time spent doing the latter is time not spent on the prime aim.
Same applies to Screen Australia and NFSA. Takes real skills to do both things, skills not visible in any of the three bodies as yet. As it is, their self-promotions antagonise their own potential mainstream supporters.
Watch McGowan (ignored by all three bodies for ten years) Tu 30 Aug ABC1 10pm!
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Without wanting to add any more negativity, it really does sound like we’re a long way behind the rest of the world in this country, in many ways. The thing is, though, I really don’t believe we need to be. I do believe there’s a ton of intelligence and talent in this country…it needs to be harnessed. I suppose recognising the need to change the name of the AFI to something more akin to the American and British equivalents could be a step in the right direction. But really…we need someone with some vision in a position where they can get things done.
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