The first set of nominees for the 7th annual AACTA Awards have been unveiled, with the Australian Academy naming those up for Best Short Fiction Film and Best Short Animation prizes.
Further nominees will be announced later in the year ahead of the Industry Luncheon and Ceremony in Sydney in December.
Among the nominees for the AACTA Award for Best Short Fiction Film is comedy The Eleven O’Clock. The film follows the delusional patient of a psychiatrist who believes he actually is the psychiatrist, and is directed and produced by Derin Seale alongside Josh Lawson (House of Lies, The Little Death) and Karen Bryson. Lawson, who wrote the screenplay, also stars opposite Damon Herriman and Alyssa McClelland.
- Read IF’s interview with Derin Seale on the making of The Eleven O’Clock
It’s up against Victoria Wharfe McIntyre, Fran Dobbie and Amadeo Marquez-Perez’s WWII Aboriginal Western, Miro, starring Mark Coles Smith (Last Cab to Darwin) and Aaron McGrath (Jasper Jones). It is writer-director Wharfe McIntyre’s second nomination in the category, having previously been up for The Telegram Man in 2012.
Also vying for the award is theatre director John Sheedy’s film debut Mrs McCutcheon. Produced by Andre Lima and Jenny Vila, Mrs McCutcheon aims to give voice to trans and gender diverse children. It has screened at festivals such as Hamburg International Short Film Festival and Oberhausen.
Rounding out the Best Short Fiction Film nominees is Luci Schroder’s critically acclaimed Slapper. A tale of a broke and rebellious teen in Australian suburbia, the short was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and won Best Short Film at last year’s ADG Awards and the Sydney Film Festival. Slapper was produced by Schroder, Jason Byrne, Michael Latham and Stephanie Westwood.
Among the nominees for Best Short Animation is stop-motion After All from Michael Cusack and Richard Chataway. Cusack has been nominated in the category multiple times; he won in 1985 for Waltzing Matilda and in 2006 for Gargoyle. He was also nominated in 2013 for Slight of Hand, again with Chataway.
Marieka Walsh is up in the short animation category for the second year in a row, this time for Barbara, a story of a Noongar woman whose granddaughter was taken from school by welfare workers in 2013. Walsh is nominated alongside Larissa Behrendt (Innocence Betrayed), Michaela Perske and Kiki Dillon.
Daniel Adgag’s Lost Property Office, which recently won the Robert Mamoulian Award for Best Director and the Yoram Gross Animation Award at Sydney Film Festival, will also vie for the animation gong. It which follows the sole custodian of a lost property office who has to move on from his post.
Lastly, Nick Baker and Tristan Klein are up for The Wall, narrated by David Wenham and sparked by Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexican border. It won Best Visual Effects at Tropfest earlier this year and was a finalist for the Yoram Gross Animation Award at Sydney Film Festival.
The Short Fiction Film and Short Animation nominated films will screen during AACTA’s Festival of Australian Film – For Your Consideration screenings, alongside the feature length documentary nominees and the feature films in competition. The program will screen in cinemas throughout August and September and online via AACTA TV.