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Meet the Makers to return

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts is reinstating the Meet the Makers events in the week of the 4th annual AACTA awards.

Nominees from all major guilds will showcase and discuss their work at screenings in Sydney, venue to be decided, at the AFI | AACTA ScreenWeek from January 26 – 29.

AACTA was forced to skip those sessions last January as part of a cost-cutting rationalisation but now has a more stable business model, according to AFI | AACTA CEO Damian Trewhella.

The awards luncheon presented by Deluxe will be held at The Star on January 27. The awards ceremony is set for January 29 at The Star, with the telecast starting at 8.30 pm on Network Ten.

There will be an encore screening on Foxtel’s Arena channel. Tickets for the awards will go on sale in November.

Trewhella told IF the ScreenWeek program, which will be announced later, will be on a larger scale than the first two years, with the participation of more guilds and more nominees.

The program will provide a great opportunity for the industry to form new collaborations within and across crafts and to showcase their work, he added.

He said the organisation now has a great operational capacity through organising year-round events for members in Sydney and Melbourne.

The feature film nominees culled from the 25 eligible films, all TV nominees and the remaining documentary nominees are yet to be announced.

Initial feedback from members to the proposed renaming of AACTA’s premiere accolade, the Raymond Longford Award, to the Longford Lyell Award has been uniformly positive.

The new name will recognise Lottie Lyell, the Australian film pioneer’s partner in life and work, who performed in 25 of Longford’s films and served as his co-producer, co-writer or sole writer, film editor, production designer and, mostly uncredited, co-director.

The AACTA Awards Screenings program runs from October 6-23 at Event Cinemas Bondi Junction and Melbourne’s Palace Cinema Como and Backlot Studios, launching with Julius Avery’s Son Of A Gun, a psychological thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Brenton Thwaites.