A Mad Night At The AACTA Awards

Whether or not it will be up for the top gongs come Oscar time remains to be seen, but George Miller’s apocalyptic smash hit Mad Max: Fury Road dominated the AACTA Awards last night, winning Best Film and Best Director, with the latter award presented to the filmmaker on stage by Mel Gibson. Those two big wins added to the six craft awards that the film already nabbed at the industry luncheon last week.

The evening’s other major winner was Jocelyn Moorhouse’s comic drama, The Dressmaker, which won the Audience Award after a massive local opening at the box office, as well as three acting awards to add to its Best Costume win last week. Kate Winslet won Best Actress, while Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving won the Best Supporting Actress and Actor nods for their memorable turns in the film.

Michael Caton received the Best Lead Actor award for his moving performance in Last Cab To Darwin, another of the year’s big box office success stories. The film had also previously won Best Adapted Screenplay for Reg Cribb and Jeremy Sims.

Cate Blanchett was this year’s recipient of the Longford Lyell Award, which recognises an artist’s contribution to our culture. Video tributes flooded in from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Ron Howard and Todd Haynes, with the latter filmmaker directing the actress in the soon-to-be-released Carol.

The actress, who became a little emotional on stage, praised numerous actresses who blazed the trail for her early on in her career including Judy Davis, Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths and Jacqueline McKenzie, and she also paid tribute to Lottie Lyell, who is regarded as Australia’s first film star.

“So often in any industry – the film industry is no exception – female achievement, because we just get on and do stuff, gets swept under the carpet,” Blanchett said in her acceptance speech.

Adam Arkapaw walked away with this year’s Byron Kennedy Award for his stunning work behind the camera. Ever since breaking out with Animal Kingdom, the cinematographer’s career has been on a steep rise with his recent credits including Macbeth and Justin Kurzel’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed, as well as the TV series Top of the Lake and True Detective.

In the television side of things, the mini-series Peter Allen – Not The Boy Next Door was the big winner, taking out all five of the awards for which it was competing: Best Mini-Series, Best Screenplay in Television, Best Lead Actor (Joel Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Sigrid Thornton) and Best Supporting Actor (newcomer Ky Baldwin).

In other television categories, Best Lead Actress went to Pamela Rabe for her turn in Wentworth, while Best Television Drama was won by the ABC’s Glitch.