Female directors have dominated the Documentary Feature category of the 2014 Australian Directors Guild Awards, whilst Home & Away has muscled out any other competition for TV Drama Serial.
The nominees, announced this morning, cover 16 categories across film, television, multiplatform, music and advertising. This year has seen the ADG receive more entries than ever before, making the judging process a difficult one.
“In the TV drama category, the documentary feature category and the feature film categories especially, the caliber is really high so that’s why there are so many nominations,” says ADG Executive Director Kingston Anderson.
“The judges take it very seriously and fully understand the recognition the awards can bring.”
In the feature film category, Baz Luhrmann was unsurprisingly nominated for box office hit The Great Gatsby alongside strong contenders Kim Mordaunt (The Rocket), Ivan Sen (Mystery Road), Jonathan Teplitzky (The Railway Man) and Zak Hilditch, whose film These Final Hours, will be in cinemas in July.
All six nominees in the Feature Documentary Category are women. Sophia Turkiewicz has been nominated for Once my Mother, Rebecca Barry for I Am A Girl, Heather Kirkpatrick for Mary Meets Mohammad, Juliet Lamont for Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls, Lynn-Maree Milburn for In Bob We Trust and Kaye Harrison for The Sunnyboy.
In television, Home & Away has taken over the entire TV Drama Serial category, with nominations for David Gould (episode 5873), Howard Scott Hartford-Davis (episode 5884) and Geoffery Nottage (episodes 5712 and 5713.)
For TV Drama, Rachel Perkins and Adrian Russell-Wills have both been nominated for Redfern Now; while Glendyn Ivin is up for Puberty Blues, Peter Duncan for Rake, Tori Gareet for The Time of Our Lives and Kevin Carlin for Wentworth.
It’s Nowhere Boys versus Dance Academy Season 3 in the Children’s TV sector while in TV Comedy, Daniel Nettheim is nominated for Mr and Mrs Murder along with Matthew Saville for Please Like Me and Trent O’Donnell for The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting.
Anderson emphasized the strength of the television nominations this year, stating: “We’ve really dominated in the TV categories this year. TV drama again has been a very very strong category and a very tough one to judge because of the high caliber of work that has been submitted so again it has a large number of nominees.
“The great thing is it’s also not just the usual suspects – new are people coming through which just reflects the strength of our TV production and the talent that is emerging as a result.”
The ADG Awards will be held on Friday, May 2 at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. More information and tickets can be found here: http://www.adg.org.au/awards-2014.aspx
For a full list of nominees, see below.
The complete 2014 ADG Awards nominees list:
Original Online Project:
One nominee, winner announced on the night
TV Commercial:
Glendyn Ivin – Nightmares
Ray Lawrence – NSW Teachers Federation: First Day
Ray Lawrence – NSW Teachers Federation: Last Day
Sean Meehan – Holden – Amnesia
Cross Platform Project:
One nominee, winner announced on the night
Music Video:
David Barker – Nightingale Floor
Melvin J. Montalban – The Best We Got
TV Comedy:
Daniel Nettheim – Mr and Mrs Murder – Series 1 Episode 5 "Lost Soul"
Matthew Saville – Please Like Me – Series 1 Episode 3 "Portuguese Custard Tarts"
Trent O’Donnell – The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting – Episode 1
TV Drama Serial:
David Gould – Home & Away – Episode 5873
Geoffrey Nottage – Home & Away – Episode 5712
Geoffrey Nottage – Home & Away – Episode 5713
Howard Scott Hartford-Davis – Home & Away – Episode 5884
Short Film:
Alex Ryan – Ngurrumbang
Josh Tanner – The Landing
Julietta Boscolo – Sam’s Gold
Sean Kruck – Snowblind
Student Film:
Erin Good – The Wonderful
Lucy Gaffy – The Fence
Melissa Anastasi – By This River
Warwick Young – Stuffed
TV Children’s:
Craig James Irvin – Nowhere Boys – Series 1 Episode 8
Daniel Nettheim – Dance Academy – Series 3 Episode 12 "A Perfect Storm"
Peter Carstairs – Nowhere Boys – Series 1 Episode 7
Finders Award:
Winner announced on the night.
TV Mini Series:
Daina Reid – Paper Giants: Magazine Wars – Part 1
Geoff Bennett – The Packer-Murdoch Story – Episode 1
Khoa Do – Better Man – Episode 4
TV Drama Series:
Adrian Russell-Wills – Redfern Now – Series 2 Episode 1 "Where the Heart Is"
Glendyn Ivin – Puberty Blues – Series 1 Episode 6
Kevin Carlin – Wentworth – Series 1 Episode 1
Peter Duncan – Rake – Series 2 Episode 2
Rachel Perkins – Redfern Now – Series 2 Episode 2 "Starting Over"
Tori Garrett – The Time of our Lives – Series 1 Episode 5
Documentary Series:
Bentley Dean/Martin Butler – First Footprints – Episode 1
Gary Doust – Next Stop Hollywood
Nick Robinson – Kakadu – Episode 4
Documentary Stand-Alone:
Corrie Chen – Suicide & Me
John Hughes – Love & Fury
Madeleine Hetherton – The Surgery Ship
Telemovie:
Rachel Ward – An Accidental Soldier
Rowan Woods – The Broken Shore
Documentary Feature:
Heather Kirkpatrick – Mary Meets Mohammad
Juliet Lamont – Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls
Kaye Harrison – The Sunnyboy
Lynn-Maree Milburn – In Bob We Trust
Rebecca Barry – I Am A Girl
Sophia Turkiewicz – Once my Mother
Feature Film:
Baz Luhrmann – The Great Gatsby
Ivan Sen – Mystery Road
Jonathan Teplitzky – The Railway Man
Kim Mordaunt – The Rocket
Zak Hilditch – These Final Hours