‘Ali’s Wedding’.
Australian features have dominated the Audience Awards at the country’s biggest film fest, the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Luca Guadagnino’s coming of age drama, Call Me By Your Name, was voted the top film ahead of three Australian features in the top ten. The new Australian romantic comedy starring co-writer Osamah Sami, Don Hany and Helena Sawires, Ali’s Wedding, received a boost before its Australian release next week, ranking second most popular feature among MIFF viewers. The love for the Jeffrey Walker-helmed film follows on from the Sydney Film Festival, where it topped the audience awards.
The screening of Jane Campion and Ariel Kleiman’s Sydney-set TV series, Top of the Lake: China Girl, co-written by Gerard Lee, ranked fourth in the MIFF awards, while Gregory Erdstein and Alice Foulcher’s Melbourne romantic comedy, That’s Not Me, ranked ninth ahead of its September 7 release. Call Me By Your Name is scheduled for a Boxing Day release.
This is the first time three Australian features have ranked in the top ten since 2009.
Dan Jones (Detour de France, MIFF 2006) and Marcus Cobbledick’s (Fairless, MIFF 2015) feature doc All For One, which follows GreenEDGE, Australia’s first ProTour cycling team, was voted favourite documentary.
It was one of four Australian documentaries in the top ten. Naina Sen’s film about the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir in Hermannsburg, The Songkeepers, which was funded through MIFF’s Premiere Fund, came in third, Australian director Kate Hickey’s Roller Dreams, which looks at the rollerskating craze in the US, ranked seventh, and Jennifer Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra leader Richard Tognetti’s duet, Mountain, came in tenth.
The New Zealand doco about the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club, Pecking Order, ranked ninth. Jennifer Brea’s medical video dairy, Unrest, was voted second most popular documentary, Raoul Peck’s Academy Award-nominated civil rights film for Netflix, I Am Not Your Negro, ranked fourth and Agnes Varda’s Faces Places fifth.
Among feature films, Sally Potter’s The Party came in third and Dave McNary’s US romantic comedy, Brigsby Bear, ranked fifth ahead of its September 21 release.
MIFF 2017 Top 10 Feature Films:
- Call Me by Your Name
- Ali’s Wedding
- The Party
- Top of the Lake: China Girl
- Brigsby Bear
- Ethel & Earnest
- A Fantastic Woman
- Loving Vincent
- That’s Not Me
- Lucky
MIFF 2017 Top 10 Documentaries:
- All for One
- Unrest
- The Song Keepers
- I am Not Your Negro
- Faces Places
- City of Ghosts
- Roller Dreams
- STEP
- Pecking Order
- Mountain