We've written about the SoundKilda awards already, and here are the results of the St Kilda Film Festival awards, which may sound similar but are a very different series of gongs given at the same festival to reward the 100 Australian short films that are part of the program. There were only 99 shorts this year, as You Like It, I Love It was withdrawn from the festival at the last minute. In any case there were plenty of very high quality films screening, and it's nice to see many of the big winners were shorts that ScreenAnarchy highlighted before and during the festival.
While many had predicted a main prize sweep from Yardbird, subtle Melbourne drama Joey was instead the underdog that dominated the big prizes, with John Evagora's black and white short winning Best Short Film and Best Director. Pablo Labanino and Daniel Agdag also won Best Editing for Joey and its lead actor Steve Mouzakis won Best Actor. The latter was a strange category as they rolled both actor and actress into the same award presumably for some silly politically-correct reason, whereas a short film festival that showcases the work of hundreds of actors really should segment this award into two categories. Anything else shortchanges actors' work and doesn't recognise the subtle nuances that differentiate performances by each gender. We are not a homogeneous mass of genderless bodies just yet surely?
The prized Craft and Visual Effects Awards went to director Christopher Frey for Explosions (see the short here) while Best Documentary went to Anne-Maree Shelton's Tidiest Town 2002, another title profiled on ScreenAnarchy before the festival. See the full list of winners below.
Best Short Film
Winner: Joey - Dir. John Evagora / Prod. Polly Staniford
Commendation: Tender - Dir. Jessica Redenbach / Prod. Cecilia Ritchie
Craft Award
Explosions - Dir. Christopher Frey / Prod. Christopher Frey
Best Director
Winner: Joey - Dir. John Evagora
Commendation: Arc - Dir. Max Doyle
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Yardbird - Adam Arkapaw
Best Achievement in Screenplay
The Road Home - Denie Pentecost
Best Achievement in Indigenous Filmmaking
She. Say. - Dir. Leah Purcell / Prod. Bain Stewart and David Jowsey
Best Documentary
Tidiest Town 2002 - Dir. Anne-Maree Shelton / Prod. Anne-Maree Shelton
Best Animation
Sleight of Hand - Dir. Michael Cusack / Prod. Richard Chataway
Best Comedy
Gus - Dir. Andrew Martin / Prod. Andrew Martin
Best Achievement in Editing
Joey - Pablo Labanino and Daniel Agdag
Best Achievement in Sound - Post Production
Men of the Earth - Andrew Kavanagh & Benjamin Holmes
Best Actor
Steve Mouzakis - Joey
Best Achievement Visual Effects
Explosions - Christopher Frey
Best Achievement in Production Design
The Hoarders - Jessica Meyer
Best Original Score
Yardbird - Elliott Wheeler
SBS2 TV Award
Thin Air - Dir. Natalie Nalesnyik / Prod. Dan Gregg
Under the Radar - Best Youth Short Film
Resistance - Dir. Blake Borcich / Prod. Blake Borcich
Audience Award:
Dave's Dead - Dir. Alethea Jones / Prod. Julian Costanzo, Luke Ryan