SXSW Sydney has announced the 2024 Screen Award winners, with Australian feature A Grand Mockery taking home the big gong for Best Feature Film.
A Grand Mockery was directed by Samuel Dixon and Adam C Briggs, and shot entirely on Super-8 film. The flick follows Josie (Dixon) who leads a life of passive mundane displeasure before his psychic ills deform him and see him roaming the rainforest hinterlands of Queensland. A Grand Mockery ‘begins as a work of morbid comic realism before the film transforms along with Josie’.
The Stan Original Series Thou Shalt Not Steal, from director Dylan Rivers, won the Best Episodic award. Thou Shalt Not Steal follows Robyn (Sherry-Lee Watson), a young Aboriginal delinquent, who is on a search to find the truth behind a family secret. She escapes from detention and reluctantly teams up with awkward teenager Gidge (Will McDonald).
Together they flee her small central desert community and head out on a perilous journey across the outback. Hot on their heels are Maxine (Miranda Otto), a sex worker whose taxi Robyn stole, and Gidge’s domineering father Robert (Noah Taylor), a fraudulent preacher.
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The Audience Award went to Pools, the debut feature film of Sam Hayes that stars Odessa A’zion (A24’s Marty Supreme) and Mason Gooding (Scream VI, Love, Victor) and Modern Family’s Ariel Winter.
Pools follows Kennedy (A’zion), who is stuck at summer school after flunking her sophomore year of college. Amidst a heat wave, she rallies a ragtag crew for a pool-hopping adventure through the wealthy estates of Lake Forest, on the north shore of Chicago. But as the secrets spill, a wild night of fun becomes a cathartic journey of self-discovery.
The award for Best Short Film was tied between Fishtank (dir. Wendi Tang, China/USA) – a story about a woman who can’t stop vomiting goldfish – and Try to Remember, Please (dir. Maria Dudko, Australia) – a visceral first-person account of how violence is erased from memory.
Ruby and Tom Take a Cake to a Wedding (dir. Jack McTaggart) took home the award for Best Student Film. The short follows determined and aspiring cake-maker Ruby and her aloof partner Tom, who must deliver a wedding cake out of town, forcing them to rely on their family and friends who consistently can’t seem to spare a second thought to anything beyond their own self-involved lives.
Best Music Video was awarded to Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ Pillhouse, directed by Ollie Jones (United Kingdom).
The 2024 SXSW Sydney Screen Festival finished last Sunday 20 October with Two Hands: A Live Script Read, hosted by Alexei Toliopoulos (The Last Video Store podcast, Finding Yeezus) and comedian Gen Fricker (Have You Been Paying Attention?).
Toliopoulos and Fricker were joined on stage by a line-up of Australian comedy performers including Susoe Youssef, Clare Cavanagh, Danielle Walker, Dave Woodhead, Ella Lawry and Zach Ruane.
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SXSW Sydney Screen Awards: full winners list
BEST FEATURE FILM
A Grand Mockery
2024, Australia. World Premiere.
Directors: Sam Dixon, Adam C. Briggs
BEST SHORT FILM
Fishtank
2024, China/USA. World Premiere.
Director: Wendi Tang
AND
Try to Remember, Please
2024, Australia. World Premiere.
Director: Maria Dudko
BEST MUSIC VIDEO
‘Pillhouse’ Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.
2024, United Kingdom.
Director: Ollie Jones
BEST EPISODIC
Thou Shalt Not Steal
2024, Australia
Director: Dylan River
From: Ludo Studios & Stan Australia
BEST STUDENT
Ruby and Tom Take a Cake to a Wedding
2024, Australia. Australian Premiere.
Director: Jack McTaggart
For more information, head to the SXSW Sydney website.
