‘Sweet Country’.
Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country proved the people’s choice at this year’s Adelaide Film Festival, with audiences voting it Best Fiction Feature.
It is yet another award for the outback Western, which won the Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival; the Premio Bisato d’Oro award, the Venice Critic’s award for Best Film; the Platform Prize at Toronto International Film Festival and Best Dramatic Feature film at the ImagineNATIVE Film Festival in Canada. It is also nominated for three Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the most ever received by an Australian film.
Sweet Country made its Australian premiere at Adelaide Film Festival, which was also an investor in the film. It will be released theatrically January 25, 2018 via Transmission.
Aussie films also dominated the rest of Adelaide’s audience awards, with Axel Girgor’s Jill Bilcock: Dancing the Invisible voted Best Feature Documentary, while Best Short Film went to Back to Back Theatre’s screen debut, Oddlands. The latter project is a product of Adelaide Film Festival’s HIVE lab, a partnership with the ABC, the Australian Council of the Arts and Screen Australia; it will air on the ABC next year.
Adelaide Film Festival CEO and artistic director Amanda Duthie said: “From all the amazing films from all over the world premiering in the festival, the audience has chosen three peculiarly Australian stories as their favourites, Australians want to see their stories and identity reflected on the big screen, and that is delivered so brilliantly in these three titles.”