Last night’s Closing Gala for the 2017 Sydney Film Festival saw an array of diverse Australia films and talent receive distinctions, as well as the Australian premiere of highly-anticipated Netflix Original Film Okja as the 64th Festival came to a close.
The prestigious Sydney Film Prize was awarded to Ildikó Enyedi‘s intriguing love story On Body and Soul, while Sydney natives Sascha Ettinger Epstein and Claire Haywood received the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary for The Pink House, about the last brothel in old mining town Kalgoorlie.
The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films saw the $7000 cash prize for the Dendy Live Action Short Award going to Adele, directed by Mirene Igwabi.
Sunday Emerson Gullifer was Highly Commended for her short film Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Daniel Agdag’s animation Lost Property Office took out both the Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director and the Yoram Gross Animation Award.
The Event Cinemas Australian Short Screenplay Award, a $5,000 prize for the best short screenwriting, was awarded to Michael Cusack, the writer and director of stop-motion animation After All.
The Sydney-UNESCO City of Film Award, bestowed by Create NSW to a trail-blazing NSW-based screen practitioner, went to Indigenous Australian actor, director and writer Leah Purcell.
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