By Travis Johnson
Backtrack, Broke, Downriver and Teenage Kicks have all been added to the slate of feature films in competition for the 6th AACTA Awards, bringing the total to 28. That’s a massive leap up from previous years – 17 films competed in 2015, while only 9 qualified in 2014.
AFI/AACTA CEO, Damien Trewhella, says that the expanded slate is in response to a record number of films being entered for pre-selection this year. “It’s wonderful to see such engagement from the Australian screen industry this year. We’ve recently broken a number of records, with more films entering for pre-selection than ever before, and the most Feature Films in Competition we’ve seen in AACTA’s history.”
The four films join A Few Less Men, A Month of Sundays, Beast, Boys in the Trees, Down Under, Early Winter, Embedded, Girl Asleep, Gods of Egypt, Goldstone, Hacksaw Ridge, Joe Cinque’s Consolation, Looking for Grace, Pawno, Red Billabong, Scare Campaign, Sucker, Tanna, The Daughter, The Menkoff Method, and Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.
To be honest it’s a surprise these films, reasonably high profile Australian features one and all, were not included in the original roster. Other notable Australian films, such as Martin McKenna’s Is This the Real World?, weren’t so lucky, still missing out on a place in competition.
The final AACTA nominees will be announced in October, with the ceremony happening in Sydney on December 7.
