The Melbourne International Film Festival have announced the inaugural MIFF Awards recipients.
The newly introduced MIFF Awards, which include the Bright Horizons Competition and Award and the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award, were launched as part of the 70th anniversary alongside the return of the MIFF Audience Award.
Chosen by a distinguished jury of industry figures. Alongside Jury President, stage and screen Actor and Director Shareena Clanton (Wentworth), the jury comprised Emmy award-winning filmmaker and artist Lynette Wallworth, Australian cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (Animal Kingdom) and Indonesian film director and screenwriter Mouly Surya (Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts).
The jury gathered at Olinda Hall, the site of the very first Melbourne Film Festival event in 1952, to deliberate and determine the 2022 category winners, click below for more.
Bright Horizons Award
Winner: Neptune Frost
Director: Saul Williams & Anisia UzeymanAbout: A wildly ambitious, radically experimental Afrofuturist musical that transcends space, time and gender from visionary poet and musician Saul Williams.
Statement from Jury: "Neptune Frost was like nothing we have ever seen before. By disrupting the colonial gaze and connecting the rising influence of technology, this film penetrates deeply into your heart and soul to say that you are not too far disconnected from me."
Check out Dustin's review here.
Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award
Winner: Sweet As
Director: Jub ClercAbout: The Breakfast Club meets the outback in this uplifting coming-of-age road movie.
Statement from Jury: "We are so excited to see what happens next in this filmmaker's journey, and hope that this award encourages their future film-making projects; that it not just inspires more Indigenous women to be central characters in their own stories."
Audience Award Winner
Winner: Greenhouse by Joost
Director: Bruce Permezel and Rhian SkirvingAbout: The Breakfast Club meets the outback in this uplifting coming-of-age road movie.
Statement: "Selected by MIFF festival-goers from amongst a program of over 250 features, the 2022 MIFF Audience Award winner was a Melbourne made documentary with global sustainability at its heart"