Jub Clerc’s debut feature Sweet As will make its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival next month in the Generation Kplus strand, which is aimed at a youth audience.
It marks yet another milestone for the film, which first premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) last August, where Clerc won the $70,000 Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award.
The film then went on to the Toronto International Film Festival, where it became the first Australian film to win the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award for best Asian feature film.
A coming-of-age tale, Sweet As stars Shantae Barnes-Cowan as 16-year-old Indigenous girl Murra, who finds herself abandoned after an argument with her mother. An unusual lifeline is thrown her way by her Uncle Ian (Mark Coles Smith), a local cop, in the form of a travelling photo safari. The cast also includes Tasma Walton, Mark Coles Smith, and Ngaire Pigram.
A Nyul Nyul and Yawuru writer/director, Clerc penned the script with long-time collaborator Steve Rodgers. Arenamedia’s Liz Kearney is the producer and Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson executive producers.
The production was backed by Screenwest’s West Coast Visions Initiative, with major investment from Screen Australia’s First Nations Department, in association with Screenwest, Lotterywest, and the Western Australian Screen Fund.
Roadshow Films picked up the film for distribution in ANZ off the back of MIFF. It was also nominated for Best Youth Film at last year’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Sweet As joins a number of Australian projects in this year’s Berlinale, including Stan/Matchbox Pictures’ series Bad Behaviour, Danny and Michael Philippou’s debut feature Talk to Me, short film Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black), created by Yankunytjatjara artist Derik Lynch and artist Matthew Thorne, and Soda Jerk’s Hello Dankness.