PRAYERS ANSWERED AS CHURCH CITY AUDS FLOCK TO ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL

The 2022 Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) has wrapped with the news that the 12-day event achieved a new box office and audience attendance record.

With audience attendance up 13% from the last AFF in 2020 (also a record result) and box office 56% up on the last pre-pandemic festival in 2018, the newly-annualised Festival’s expansion into multiple venues across Adelaide has proven to be a resounding success.

Ahead of Sunday’s Closing Night screening of Michael Philippou and Daniel Philippou’s debut feature Talk to Me, CEO & Creative Director Mat Kesting (pictured, right) announced that director Sinem Saban’s Luku Ngarra, which had its World Premiere at AFF 2022, won the Change Award. Bestowed upon works that inspire positive social or environmental impact and cinema expressing new directions for humanity, Luku Ngarra is an unflinching, Indigenous-funded documentary on the history and culture of Arnhem Land, seen through the eyes of one of Australia’s most respected Indigenous elders and traditional lawmen, Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM. 

The winner of the Flinders University Short Film Prize was announced as Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund film Are You Really The Universe (pictured, below), directed by Tamara Hardman and starring Tilda Cobham-Hervey. The Audience Award for Feature Fiction goes to Ribspreader, directed by Adelaide’s Dick Dale, and The Last Daughter, co-directed by Nathaniel Schmidt and Brenda Matthews, has won the Audience Award for Feature Documentary.

Previously announced were the two Jury determined awards. The AFF Feature Fiction Award 2022 was presented to Indonesian feature film Autobiography, with a $10,000 cash prize awarded to director Makbul Mubarak, and the AFF Feature Documentary Award went to The Hamlet Syndrome, with a $10,000 cash prize awarded to directors Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski. The directors have since announced they are to donate the prize money to their film’s Ukrainian subjects, who are fighting in the war against Russia.

Kesting noted that the surge in attendance is a clear indication that the theatrical experience and a dedication to film culture is alive and well in South Australia. “Audiences embraced the AFF program and demonstrated a clear desire to go out to the cinema. The record-breaking box office and attendance results reaffirm the desire to see films in cinemas and engage with courageous filmmaking,” he said.

“An extraordinary cross section of work from around the world was presented, including a remarkable crop of new films from South Australia. We congratulate all the filmmakers [and] are proud to have supported numerous directorial debuts within the festival,” Kesting pointed out, referencing the AFFIF feature investment films Talk to Me; Sean Lahiff’s Carnifex; Matt Vesely’s Monolith; The Last Daughter, from co-directors Brenda Matthews and Nathaniel Schmidt; and, Madeline Parry’s The Angels: Kickin’ Down the Door. (Pictured, right; director  Sinem Saban and Rev Dr Djiniyini Gondarra OAM, from Luku Ngarra)

“The AFF’s 2022 results demonstrate why the South Australian Government has decided to invest $2 million to help annualise and expand the program,” declared S.A. Arts Minister Andrea Michaels in response to the festival’s success. “Congratulations to the entire Adelaide Film Festival team on these outstanding results. They have demonstrated that the event is a huge drawcard, not only for audiences, but also for film industry creatives globally.”