The 2021 AACTA Awards: Punching On In The Covid Era

By Erin Free

After amusingly announcing “I am your President”, legendary Australian-via-New-Zealand actor and current AACTA President Russell Crowe urged his performing and filmmaking colleague to embrace causes and support their respective communities, but also to keep their acceptance speeches efficient and to-the-point, with a minimum of waffling. “And don’t be boring,” he capped off with, dropping a famous acting quote. Thankfully, Rusty’s constituents pretty much followed their President’s lead, with the 2021 AACTA Awards rolling out in a pretty pacey and no-nonsense fashion. And while there was an upbeat feel to proceedings, the dark cloud of Covid, and the damage that it has wrought on the local industry, still hung low and heavy. “It’s been a tough couple of years for our industry but we are still managing to produce amazing work,” Russell Crowe said.

Kicked off by pop-rock outfit Lime Cordiale performing their insidious ear-worm “Apple Crumble” – with a little help from a videoed in Idris Elba – the obviously edited telecast ceremony moved along swiftly, but with all of the usual awards show awkwardness. The subdued, masked-up industry audience was typically non-forthcoming with the giggles, leaving talented presenters like Susie Youssef and Nakkhia Lui to horribly flounder under the weight of not-great-but-certainly-not-terrible jokes. Dave Hughes worked hard and got a little more out of the crowd with a funny bit about Australia’s TV hogging, Covid-era state premiers, but Tom Gleeson and Celia Pacquola fared the best by suggesting that if young creatives want to get a show up on the ABC, their best bet is to make something that “appeals to old people.” Rebel Wilson also copped some surprised laughs when she told a story about Russell Crowe telling her to, um, go away (in no uncertain terms) when she was a young actor at The Sydney Theatre Company. “True story,” Wilson said, and many who watched are probably still pondering over whether she was joking or not.

Alongside the many in-ceremony plugs and promotes for sponsor Foxtel (Bojana Novakovic and Celia Pacquola’s lengthy hard-sell on Binge’s new drama Love Me was especially cringe-worthy), there were also great musical performances from The Church’s Steve Kilbey (delicately working his acoustic guitar on “Under The Milky Way” over the always moving in-memorium segment) and wonderfully energetic indigenous rapper Baker Boy, who offered a beautiful tribute to the recently passed David Gulpilil. Australia’s most iconic, pioneering and influential Aboriginal actor was also honoured with The Longford Lyell Award for his long and winding career. Introduced by Jack Thompson and Rachel Perkins, and dotted with appearances from big names like Hugh Jackman and Bryan Brown, the tribute was intended for Gulpilil, but the actor – so memorable in essential films like Storm Boy, Walkabout, The Last Wave, The Tracker, Crocodile Dundee, Charlie’s Country and many, many others – passed away just days before the ceremony. It was, without question, the most moving part of the awards night.

The huge film winner on the night was undoubtedly Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, the haunting, poetically constructed and deeply disturbing story of the seeds that were slowly and irrevocably sown to create notorious Tasmanian mass murderer Martin Bryant. In amongst its eight wins (including Best Film, and well, pretty much everything else), much was made of the controversy surrounding the film, and even, indeed, its very right to exist at all. “We know that it’s not a film for everyone, and that’s SO okay,” said producer Nick Batzias. Some may have also got a shock when they heard American leading man Caleb Landry-Jones’ thick Texan accent on his phone video acceptance speech in which he was sitting in the front of a moving car. “Everybody knows there are a lot of folks who didn’t want it done and thought it was impossible to do, and that beautiful group of people, you know, proved otherwise,” Landry Jones said of the film’s crew and creatives. “So, by giving us these awards, you’re saying you see it and respect it. And for that, I’m forever thankful.”

Fittingly, the ceremony ended with one of Australia’s true heavy hitters – epic favouring director Baz Luhrmann – urging the government to maintain its support of the arts. “Looking around this room, being in this space, and remembering that so many years ago, our forefathers, our foremothers in the land far, far away – you know, it’s really important to put government money in and to have a film school, to have an acting school, to even get this building built,” Luhrmann said passionately. “They put that money in and, if they hadn’t have done that, if the government hadn’t have supported us, none of us would be here today. Because as a small country, we hit so far above our weight, it’s almost inconceivable. And that’s because we’ve had government support in the arts. So let’s not stop doing it. Let’s double-down on that. That’s what I’d like to close with.”

It was a powerful moment and an inspirational end for a fairly enjoyable awards ceremony…but does anyone reckon PM Scott “Go the Sharks” Morrison took notice of one word of it?

For more on the AACTA Awards, head to the official website.

FULL LIST OF WINNERS IN THE FILM CATEGORY

Best Film: Nitram

Best Adapted Screenplay in Film: The Dry

Best Cinematography in Film: The Dry – Stefan Duscio

Best Costume Design in Film: High Ground – Erin Roche

Best Direction in Film: Nitram – Justin Kurzel

Best Editing in Film: Nitram – Nick Fenton

Best Indie Film: Ellie and Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)

Best Lead Actor in Film: Caleb Landry Jones – Nitram

Best Lead Actress in Film: Judy Davis – Nitram

Best Original Screenplay in Film: Nitram – Shaun Grant