The disappointment suffered from recent Australian television is more than somewhat assuaged by the sumptuous smorgasbord of short films presented in this year’s Dendy Awards.
The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films is a short film springboard that has kick-started the careers of many prominent filmmakers including Warwick Thornton, Ariel Kleiman, Cate Shortland, Jane Campion, Phillip Noyce and Ivan Sen. The Sydney Film Festival’s short film competition is now in its 51st year. This is your invitation to discover new and emerging talents in this year’s top 10.
I WANT TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT WOMEN is a superlative film about Russian revolutionary women artists of the 1920s directed byKaren Pearlman,Senior Lecturer,Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University.
A sublime practitioner as well as an astute academic, Pearlman’s film is technically accomplished and intellectually satisfying.
One of the performers from I WANT TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT WOMEN, Nadia Zwecker, stars in MUKBANG, written and directed by Eliza Scanlen.
An assured directorial debut from the established actress, MUKBANG has schoolgirl, Annie, experiment with the food porn internet phenomenon of unfettered feeding your face. Kudos to cast and crew for making this possibly unappetising film pleasurably palatable.
Also in the sphere of the schoolgirl burgeoning sexuality and maturity, HER OWN MUSIC, Olivia Alexsoski’s study of school captain and swot, Maddie’s emancipation of the expected.
AYAAN is an exquisitely composed and poised film about a female refugee with accompanying child washed up on the shores of Port Augusta and the indigenous man she must put her trust in. Gorgeously shot and framed, it boasts three fine performances, Babetida Sadjo as Ayaan, Trevor Jamieson as Frank and Gary Sweet as a police sergeant.
Mert Berdilek’s THE FALL is a two hand religious argument between the widow of a Syrian suicide and her Imam, a two and fro argument about hadiths and nationalism.
Alex Wu’s IDOL is a one shot wonder about the perils of the gilded cage of celebrity, the annihilation of anonymity and the fanaticism of fandom.
In GREVILLIA, Jordan Giusti touches on the meaning of a tattoo for a Jewish juvenile delinquent incarcerated in a detention centre.
Rounding out these top ten films are three animated marvels:
GNT is a vulgar celebration of social media and genital affliction through Glenn, Nikki and Tammy, three besties who enjoy an antagonistic co-dependency by Sara Himer and Rosemary Vasquez-Brown.
In THE QUIET, AACTA-nominated filmmaker Radheya Jagatheva makes a potent and poetic exploration of an astronaut’s journey through space, resulting in a silent scream.
Obscura, an imaginative handmade stop-motion animation that looks inside our cameras to reveal the creatures living behind the lens, a steam punk poem to picture-making by Emily and Hanna Jordan.
These ten finalists for the prestigious Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films will screen in the Virtual Festival. Australia’s longest running short film competition is now in its 51st year and has been sponsored by Dendy Cinemas since 1989.
Finalists will compete for three coveted prizes including: The Dendy Live Action Short Award, The Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director and the Yoram Gross Animation Award, announced at the Festival’s Awards Night on Thursday, 18 June.
The competition has a star-studded jury in 2020 comprised of George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road, Happy Feet), Bryan Brown (Australia; Palm Beach, SFF 2019) and Sophie Hyde (Animals, SFF 2019).
Tickets can be purchased from the Sydney Film Festival website (www.sff.org.au) now and films will be available to view on demand for the duration of the Festival 10-21 June 2020.
Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films (10 films + Screenability – 3 films): $14. Bargain!