THIS year's Sydney Film Festival concluded yesterday 19th June ’11, awarding its $60,000 Sydney Film Prize to Iranian film “A Separation”.
Artistic director Clare Stewart ended her fifth and final festival with justifiable pride, and ahead of budget. The Sydney Film Prize was also established by Stewart.
The $60,000 prize is a boon for any filmmaker, though the commercial constraints on selecting 12 varied films within the prize's vision remain considerable.
The prize looks for films that demonstrate "emotional power and resonance; are audacious, cutting-edge, courageous; and go beyond the usual treatment of the subject matter".
"In our final deliberations we found two very different films about the relationships between men and women came closest to fitting these criteria," Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige said, on behalf of the jury.
A Separation "looks beneath the surface of relations between men and women in Iran in a way that raises questions about law, freedom and feminine and masculine honour. It is a courageous film, successfully executed."
The jury also commended Egyptian film Cairo 678 "for its courage in using a popular form of cinema to successfully communicate the frustration and anger of women in Egypt with sexual harassment, and their determination to change this".
Among other winners, “Life In Movement”, the documentary about Tanja Liedtke, the artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company who died tragically aged 29, won the $10,000 documentary prize. Pauline Chan's Chinese-Australian co-production, “33 Postcards”, a Sydney drama starring Zhu Lin and Guy Pearce, won the $5000 award for films with a multicultural perspective. Dario Russo, creator of the Italian Spiderman web series, won the $5000 Peter Rasmussen Innovation Award, the Dendy Award for Best Live Action Short went to Anthony Maras's “The Palace”; the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director went to Craig Irvin and Ashley Harris's “Tethered”; and the winner of the Yoram Gross Animation Award was “Nullarbor” written and directed by Alister Lockhart and Patrick Sarell.
This is another step forward for a festival still re-establishing itself on the global film circuit.
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