AACTA has announced the six films in contention for this year’s Best Short Film Award, drawn from more than 80 entries. IF talks to the filmmakers.
Ashes
Director: Georgina Haig
Writer: Georgina Haig
Producer: Georgina Haig, Dean Francis, Daisy Betts-Miller,
Charmaine Kuhn
Cast: Georgina Haig, Michael Caton, Michala Banas, Toby Truslove
Actress Georgina Haig turns her hand to directing for the first time with a short inspired by the death of her father and how she forgot to pick up his ashes.
“To Dad, punctuality went hand in hand with good character. So when I missed that appointment I had a kind of complicated breakdown mixed in with the general heartbreaking grief of picking up a loved one’s remains. When I finally gathered myself and got him onto the front seat of my car, the seatbelt sign started beeping, and the whole day took on such a ridiculous surreal quality that making a short film about it seemed the most sensible way to process it all,” Haig tells IF.
“The film is a gift to Dad by way of an apology, because nothing would have delighted him more than to know my fuck-up and his time obsession led to Michael Caton playing him in a film on our hometown park bench.”
Ashes has only just begun its festival run, and Haig has found it interesting to see where the humour lands, and where audiences take a breath. She has been surprised by the number of people who want to talk about the film afterwards, and share their own stories.
“The post-death process is so weird and taboo and surreal, the film reflects that,” she says.
In the week Haig found out Ashes was nominated for an AACTA, it would have been her father’s birthday. “I couldn’t have made this film without him and I almost went to message him when I found out the news that Ashes was nominated. He lived and breathed film and storytelling, he loved every aspect of the art form. This film is dedicated to him, it captures a part of his soul and mine.”
Jia
Director: Vee Shi
Writer: Vee Shi
Producer: Vee Shi, Nicholson Ren, Taysha McFarland
Cast: Sel Hiew, Tyler Jenkins, Peter Isaac Koh
For Vee Shi, to see his film Jia earn an AACTA nomination is like coming full circle; it was the winning project of AACTA’s inaugural Pitch: Focus development and production initiative in 2021.
Jia follows Ming, a grieving Chinese mother, who arrives in Australia to embark on a road trip with a young Caucasian man, Eric, to remember her late son. She soon discovers that Eric was in a romantic relationship with her son, which clashes with her conservative values.
The film is inspired by Shi’s relationship with his own mother; ‘Jia’ means home in Chinese. He hopes to develop it into a feature film.
“Ever since I came to Australia, the generational and cultural barriers between us have become more apparent, but despite these differences, she always feels like home to me,” he tells IF.
Jia played at Flickerfest, with Shi winning Best Direction in an Australian Short Film, and Sel Hiew, who plays Ming, receiving a special mention from the jury. It would go on to the screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Shi would take part in the festival’s Accelerator Lab. Its run also Shi secure an associate producer position through VicScreen’s Key Talent Company Placement with Michael McMahon’s Big and Little Films, and he has since transitioned into a development executive. He is one of Screen Producers Australia’s Ones to Watch for 2023.
“Seeing Jia resonate with so many diverse audiences has been both incredibly gratifying and reassuring for me as a filmmaker,” Shi says.
“It’s a reminder that despite our unique backgrounds, there are universal truths in our experiences that bind us together.”
Finding Addison
Director: Francisca Braithwaite
Writer: Francisca Braithwaite
Producer: Francisca Braithwaite
Executive producers: Nick Bolton, Jess Milne
Cast: Francisca Braithwaite, Pez Warner, Aria Hart, Jeanette Cronin, Bonnie Sveen
Francisca Braithwaite’s Finding Addison explores the trauma associated with teenage pregnancy, adoption, and the knock-on effect and impact it has on adoptees.
The 30-minute short is inspired by a friend of Braithwaite who only found out she was adopted in her 20s.
“It was an incredibly difficult time for her. Watching her journey in the search for her mother, as well as how she dealt with the situation and grew from that experience was one of the inspirations. behind the film,” Braithwaite, who also plays Addison, tells IF.
“I was also deeply interested in the other side of the story, which is why we explore the world of Isabelle (Addison’s biological mother) and what she went through.”
Braithwaite produced Finding Addison through her company Blue Sparrow Entertainment, which focuses on diverse, female-centric stories from female creatives, with the journey to screen taking around two and a half years. She was introduced to executive producers Nick Bolton and Jess Milne of Ten Alphas, who produced Mate, after returning from a stint in LA. All hailing from the Illawarra in NSW, they tried to cast and crew the film with as many locals as possible in order to support the growing screen community in the region. Bolton is also a guest lecturer at Sydney Film School, and they were able to provide paid professional work for students on the production.
To have earned an AACTA nomination is an “absolute honour”, Braithwaite says.
“I am truly blown away, and I am just so proud of what we have created.”
An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It
Director: Lachlan Pendragon
Writer: Lachlan Pendragon
Producer: Donna Hamilton
Cast: Lachlan Pendragon, John Kavanagh, Michael Richard, Jamie Trotter
An AACTA nomination caps off an incredible run for Lachlan Pendragon’s stop-motion film An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It, with the film also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short and winning a Gold Medal at the Student Academy Awards.
The meta-comedy is a meditation on the art of stop-motion animation, created during Pendragon’s ongoing doctorate studies at Griffith Film School.
It follows a telemarketer who is confronted by a mysterious talking ostrich, who informs him the universe is stop-motion animation. He must put aside his dwindling toaster sales and focus on convincing his colleagues of his terrifying discovery.
“It has been an incredible journey for me with one surprise after another,” Pendragon tells IF of the response to the film.
“It’s a dream come true.
“The Oscar nomination has changed my life. It’s opened many doors and allowed me to meet many talented people including heroes of mine. I never thought this would happen so early in my career.”
Ostrich took 10 months to animate during COVID lockdowns; about a minute of animation a month. All editing had to be figured out prior to shooting through storyboards and animatics.
Pendragon is drawn to stop-motion in part due to its similarities to live-action.
“You still are using cameras and lights and sets, just on a macro scale that plays out very slowly, one frame at a time. For my doctorate I wanted to continue exploring what is so special about this kind of animation and how this can be incorporated into the narrative of the film so that the audience can participate in that enjoyment.”
Mud Crab
Director: David Robinson-Smith
Writer: David Robinson-Smith
Producers: Adam Daniel, Adam Finney
Cast: Joshua Mehmet, Laneikka Denne
David Robinson-Smith’s Mud Crab sees a woman recount a traumatising assault she witnessed of a young man in a small coastal town, reflecting on her own culpability.
A capstone project of Robinson-Smith’s Masters at AFTRS, the film explores the director’s complicated feelings about growing up in San Remo and Budgewoi on NSW’s Central Coast.
“I am still unpacking how much violence has affected me as a younger person on the coast. It imposed constraints on my personality and hindered my ability to feel free,” he tells IF.
“Mud Crab explores the dual roles of being a victim and a spectator of violence, and how these experiences shape a person’s life going forward. All this violence lingers. It doesn’t just go away. Many people I know redirected it onto their friends, themselves, and ultimately their communities.”
As the film is told from the perspective of a woman, the camera team was entirely female, including cinematographer Jaclyn Paterson, Robinson-Smith’s partner.
“It just became obvious that the people behind our camera, the ‘spectators’, should be women. It should be a different perspective on violence in terms of colour, lighting and framing. Jaclyn has her own perspective on this stuff having grown up in Yagoona.”
The AACTA nomination adds to a number of accolades for Mud Crab, including three prizes at St Kilda Film Festival, including Best Direction, Best Original Score and Best Achievement in Cinematography, as well as Best Direction in a Student Film at the Australian Directors Guild Awards, and the Best Film – Fiction prize in at the CILECT CAPA Awards.
“The nomination means so much to us. Having Mud Crab acknowledged in this way is the greatest honour and something I never expected,” Robinson-Smith says.
Not Dark Yet
Director: Bonnie Moir
Writers: Bonnie Moir, Nicholas Denton
Producers: Bonnie Moir, Nicholas Denton, Michael Jones
Cast: Richard Moir, Nicholas Denton
Bonnie Moir’s Not Dark Yet follows an elderly man with a debilitating disease who lives in an aged care facility and struggles with his son’s abrupt departure.
It is personal film for Moir. Her father, Richard Moir, who lives with Parkinson’s, stars in the lead role.
“It’s about that inner conflict of – how do I live my own life and still be there for my dad? How do you live with something that is so beyond your control, and ultimately so heartbreaking?” she tells IF.
“This is something I’ve had to grapple with since I was young, and it’s interesting now that my peers are starting to go through similar things. Being a carer to your parent can be incredibly confronting and it’s something we don’t talk about enough.”
Moir wrote the film with Nicholas Denton, who also stars opposite Richard. The duo have been making films together for years. Denton then brought Michael Jones on to produce the film with them, who Moir says was a “perfect addition to the dynamic.”
Not Dark Yet premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2022. Since making the short, Moir has gone on to direct all six episodes of the second season of Love Me, and is shooting Stan’s upcoming series Exposure. She has also shot second unit for Garth Davis’ Foe.
Moir says she and the team are so grateful Not Dark Yet has earned an AACTA nomination.
“It means so much to us to have the film recognised in this way,” she says.
“It is a really personal film that seems to speak to people’s own experience. The response has been really meaningful.”
The winner of the 2024 AACTA Award for Best Short Film will be announced at the new home for AACTA on the Gold Coast at HOTA (Home of the Arts).
The remaining 2024 AACTA Award nominees are to be announced later this year. Round 2 voting will begin December 9 and will determine the 2024 AACTA Awards recipients.