This sentimental old Red Dog wins best in show at AACTA awards

AT last the industry awards a film that audiences loved.

AACTA Awards Ceremony

FOR once the term "dog" is not a pejorative in cinema.

The stars in the infinite Pilbara sky have aligned for local hit Red Dog just as a Jack Russell named Uggie is charming audiences in The Artist, the French film in hot contention to be named best picture at the Academy Awards.

GALLERY: AACTA Awards red carpet

Red Dog's win as the best film at the inaugural Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts awards last night at the Sydney Opera House is a big victory for the local film industry.

The AACTA awards are the replacement for the Australian Film Institute awards.

The disconnect between the industry peers who judge these awards and those they seek to entertain is almost always in evidence at this annual ceremony.

Box-office success is no sign of artistic achievement; just look to the top of the box office last weekend in Australia and ask how many awards Underworld: Awakening will tally.

There has been an enormous rift between AFI best film winners and Australia's most popular films. Red Dog joins Strictly Ballroom as the only other film in the top-10 highest-grossing local pictures to be named best film.

The cultural impact of those films adjudged by the industry not to be the best of the year is immense. Just name them: Crocodile Dundee, Australia, Babe, The Man From Snowy River, The Dish, and throw in the recent hits Mao's Last Dancer, Bran Nue Dae, Kenny.

Yet $21 million at the box office doesn't make Red Dog a worthy best film. Its alchemy does though.

We can quibble that the film didn't win in the best cinematography or even best score categories, but the perennial question about the best film category is not to quibble over. All film awards ceremonies struggle to reconcile how a best film winner should not also win the best director prize. Last night, the only real controversy was how a best film could not mean a gong for its director, Kriv Stenders.

Somehow Stenders, and his producers Nelson Woss and Julie Ryan, made Red Dog work. For some, it remains a mystery.

I'm not so curious. Red Dog fits a sentimental view of Australia - with its tough outback nature and broad, sometimes embarrassing characters - which plays brilliantly time and again in our multiplexes. It might not fit the view many have of Australia as a modern, egalitarian urban society, but it works for cinema audiences here and abroad.

So the academy got it right. Red Dog concocted a bit of magic; it was the best film of the year, despite its faults.

And Snowtown was the debut of the year, but its subject matter was so gruelling, its sadism so extreme, that a critical gag reflex meant it couldn't be voted best film.

The Hunter entered last night's gala ceremony as the leading contender with 14 nominations. It left with two wins. The Hunter falls into the trap of so many Australian films; so competent on almost every level other than the narrative pace.

And The Eye of the Storm should be content with three AACTA wins although Alexandra Schepisi's lively performance was unlucky to go unrewarded in the supporting actress category.

Her reward should be constant employment in the medium term.

In all, the film industry can be proud of its renewal but I wonder if, in part, that isn't a consequence of a diverse array of films landing in its lap this year and its subsequently sane judgments of them.

The AACTA's rudimentary treatment of the documentary and television categories and its luddite shutdown of social media coverage, due to a delayed TV coverage, remain festering sores. But we move on.

Director Stephan Elliott's emotional coming out last night ensured more YouTube hits and water-cooler talk than any award could have guaranteed.

Broadly, any lingering qualms about the AFI Awards always seemed, at least to these eyes, related to an inability to acknowledge success and the flukey nature of this country's film output.

No one complained about the AFI Awards in 1994 when The Adventure of Priscilla, Muriel's Wedding, Bad Boy Bubby and The Sum of Us duked it out.

Similarly, everyone stumbled out of the Sydney Opera House last night buoyed by a good year.

And the winners are:

FILM
Best Film: Red Dog
Best direction: Justin Kurzel, Snowtown
Best original screenplay: Griff The Invisible, Leon Ford
Best adapted screenplay: Snowtown, Shaun Grant
Best lead actor: Daniel Henshall, Snowtown
Best lead actress: Judy Davis, The Eye Of The Storm
Best supporting actor: Hugo Weaving, Oranges And Sunshine
Best supporting actress: Louise Harris, Snowtown

TELEVISION
Best television drama series: East West 101, SBS
Best telefeature, mini series or short-run series: The Slap, ABC1
Best lead actor in a television drama: Alex Dimitriades, The Slap, ABC1
Best lead actress in a television drama: Sarah Snook, Sisters Of War, ABC1
Best guest or supporting actor in a television drama: Richard Cawthorne, Killing Time, Foxtel
Best guest or supporting actress in a television drama: Diana Glenn, The Slap, ABC1
Best direction in television: The Slap, ABC1
Best screenplay in television: The Slap, ABC1
Best light entertainment television series: The Gruen Transfer, ABC1
Audience choice award for best television program: Packed To The Rafters, Seven Network
Audience choice award for best performance in a television drama: Asher Keddie, Paper Giants: The Birth Of Cleo, ABC1
Best young actor: Lara Robinson, Cloudstreet, Foxtel, Showcase.