AUDIENCE AWARDS
2022
COLD WATER THERAPY TAKES OUT AUDIENCE AWARD IN PARIS
Following a sold-out session in Paris in May 2023, the enthusiastic audience of French and Australians in France, voted surfing adventure documentary Cold Water Therapy the winner of the Audience Award. Sunnies, the award-winning short film from Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) alumni Ismail Kahn, produced by fellow student Skye Leon, was voted Audience Award runner up.
'FREEDOM SWIMMER' WINS IN AUSTIN
From left: Australian filmmaker Olivia Martin-McGuire with Richard Linklater
The Australian Short Film Today Austin Audience Award was won by the brilliant hybrid animation Freedom Swimmer, and we were lucky to have writer/director Olivia Martin-McGuire there to discuss her film after the screening. Freedom Swimmer tells the story of a grandfather’s perilous swim from China to Hong Kong that parallels his granddaughter’s own quest for a new freedom.
Remy Brand's Cold Water Therapy won the Runner-Up Award. The adventure documentary follows three Australian childhood friends escaping the ordinary, taking on the raw, unforgiving Alaskan Winter in hopes of scoring uncrowded surf.
'SUNNIES' WINS MULTIPLE AWARDS AT ST. TROPEZ
The drama Sunnies won both the Australian Short Film Today Audience Award and the Nicholas Baudin Prize at Australian Short Film Today in St Tropez in October 2022.
The film, screened in conjunction with Festival des Antipodes, follows a troubled and somewhat delinquent teen who decides to steal a pair of sunglasses from the local shops - an act that is later revealed to be part of a much bigger plan.