by FilmInk Staff
Brisbane-based filmmakers of A Grand Mockery, Adam C. Briggs and Sam Dixon, have taken out the Best Director award in the Noves Visions section of the 2025 Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, Europe’s leading genre film festival, as well as the oldest genre festival in the world.
The duo’s victory was announced at the festival’s awards ceremony last week, sharing the prize with Toshiaki Toyoda for Transcending Dimensions, and honoured alongside fellow Australians Emma Hough Hobbs & Leela Varghese, who picked up the Noves Visions Best Film and Best Animated Film awards to continue their worldwide success for Lesbian Space Princess.
Shot entirely on Super 8mm film, A Grand Mockery follows Josie (Sam Dixon) as he navigates a visceral drunken nightmare of cinemas and cemeteries through Brisbane’s surreal underbelly. As his tenuous grip on reality slowly unravels, and his closest relationships crumble, Josie ventures on a fateful expedition though the dense rainforests of North Queensland.
Having premiered at SXSW Sydney at the end of 2024, where it was awarded Best Film, Mockery has gone on to screen at festivals domestically and abroad before finding further success at Sitges.
“Sam and I are very pleased and humbled by this acknowledgment from a major European festival, the second significant plaudit it has received on the circuit,” said Briggs.
“These commendations are immeasurably helpful to finding a more sustainable pathway to creating bold and uncompromising cinema in Australia, demonstrating to financiers and distributors that we’re worth backing.”
“It has been encouraging having the film resonate with audiences so widely abroad.” Dixon added. “To be watching our weird little Super 8 Brisbane baby finally crawl out of the miasma of its birth and not be immediately met with infinite disdain is incredible.”
A Grand Mockery will have its US release in early 2026 through Yellow Veil Pictures. It will be screening as part of the Adelaide Film Festival on October 25th.
