My Last Ten Hours with You by Adelaide filmmaker Sophie Hyde was announced as the winner of the City of Melbourne Emerging Filmmaker Award for Best Australian Short Queer Film on Saturday 15 March at the 18th Melbourne Queer Film Festival – Driven by Volkswagen. Highly Commended was runner up, Look Sharp by Melbourne filmmaker, Amy Gebhardt.
The City of Melbourne Emerging Filmmaker Award offers a substantial cash prize of $2,000, demonstrating the commitment of principal sponsor, the City of Melbourne, to the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
The judging panel, which included director, writer, visual artist and actor, Colin Batrouney; Midsumma Festival Board Chair, Lisa Watts; film producer, Michael McMahon (The Home Song Stories); Deputy Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne, Gary Singer, and CEO/Station Manager of JOY 94.9, Stephen Hahn, were delighted with the quality of the nine entries, which were selected from over 50 Australian short films.
My Last Ten Hours With You starring Toby Schmitz and Joel McIlroy, is a film concerned with love and loss. It explores the (mis)communication between two lovers through their stilted yet familiar conversations and their physical interactions. It is a story about the dance between two men as they grapple with their fear of losing each other, their mutual desires, their messy and tumultuous love affair… and trying to say goodbye.
Jury member Michael Mc Mahon said, ‘I found this short film engaging, beautifully shot and acted. The casting was not stereotypically ‘young gay’ which was refreshing and gave the viewer the feeling that the film was about something more than just a gay relationship. There was something more complex going on in the lives of these men’. Jury member Deputy Lord Mayor Gary Singer said of the film, ‘It was a deeply moving and emotional film, I found that it vividly portrayed the intensity and intricate dynamics in a relationship… The acting was excellent and the mood was conveyed with passion’.
Look Sharp, a film in which a woman confronts relationship dynamics with her camera after making a dangerous deal to get the shot she wants, was applauded for its beautiful cinematography and direction. Deputy Lord Mayor Gary Singer said, ‘I ffelt it was a film about current issues and the dynamics of family and it raised contemporary issues about gay life.’