Two Australian short films have been presented with awards at the Berlin International Film Festival this year.
Julian, written and directed by Matthew Moore, received the prestigious Crystal Bear Award in the Best Short Film category, while BINO was awarded The Special Prize of the Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk for Best Short Film. Screening in the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section, for children and youth, the festival marked the world premiere of both shorts.
Julian, a thirteen-minute comedy, explores a day in the life of a nine-year-old schoolboy in the early 1980s. The film was complimented by the Berlinale jury, which praised the talent of child actor Ed Oxenbould for his portrayal of the outspoken Julian, and described the short as “a sophisticated film which accompanies a misunderstood boy on his way to popularity with wit and lightness of touch”.
It is the third consecutive year in which an Australian film has received the Crystal Bear Award in the Best Short Film category. In 2011 Lily by Kasimir Burgess won and in 2010 Franswa Sharl by Hannah Hilliard received the award.
Billie Pleffer’s BINO was the second Australian short film to receive an award at the Berlinale. The ten-minute short follows an albino boy’s realisation of an essential truth following a bizarre chance encounter with an Irish wolfhound.
Created as a Victorian College of the Arts postgraduate film, BINO was written, directed and edited by Pleffer.
The Berlinale jury commended the film's compositions and its minimal use of dialogue, describing the short as “an extremely cinematic portrait of otherworldly boys… Tense, imaginative, and full of risk”.
BINO, which was shot around outer Melbourne, also received a Special Mention from the Generation Kplus Children’s Jury at the festival. The filmmakers of both Julian and BINO received support from Screen Australia to attend and market their films at the 2012 Berlin International Film Festival.
The full list of winners at the festival can be found here.
Ed Oxenbould in Julian.