This year, the AACTA awards descended into madness in a wonderful way. We were offered the full gamut of feature films from joyful sentimentality endorsed by box office to the flintiest of colonial brutality played out on the bodies of black and white alike.
In the last few years the academy and the public have tended to agree. Not this year. The tough art won as The Nightingale took out Best Picture, Best Director, Best Script, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. That made Jennifer Kent a heroine, confirming in a very different picture the artistic integrity of Babadook.