The 2021 Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) Awards will unfurl at a Gala Luncheon in Sydney on October 22 at the Actors Centre Australia (ACA) in Leichhardt.
One of the local sector’s most prestigious annual gatherings will also be a virtual event, live streamed nationally and internationally. In 2020, the online-only ceremony scored solid traffic numbers and the ADG and ACA identified an opportunity to expand on that audience with a multi-tiered presentation in 2021.
“I warmly welcome ACA as our new venue partner,” said ADG Executive Director Alaric McAusland (pictured, right). “The 2021 Awards will be an important moment to celebrate all that has been achieved by our members over the past year, a year which has offered incredible challenges and opportunities to Australian screen directors, as well as the achievements of the ADG over its 40-year history.”
McAusland promises that the 2021 Awards will build on last year’s deep industry support and cross-industry engagement, which saw a record number of entries and the most diverse list of nominees in the Awards’ history. “[I want] to extend our sincere thanks to our award sponsors [for] supporting last year’s Covid-impacted event and their continued support for this year,” he said. These include principal partner Australian Screen Directors Authorship Collecting Society (ASDACS), major partner Media Super and Government supporters Screen NSW and Screen Australia.
Securing the ADG Awards is a further coup for the ACA, which continues to establish itself as one of the Harbour City’s premium event venues. “Actors Centre Australia is thrilled to be partnering with the ADG Awards in 2021,” said ACA Chief Operating Officer Anthony Kierann (pictured, left). “This celebration of the outstanding contribution that screen directors bring to our industry aligns with ACA’s commitment to developing the finest Australian on-screen talent. We warmly welcome ADG members and nominees to the Centre, as together, the arts community steps its way out of the pandemic.”
The ADG Awards recognise excellence in the craft and art of directing, as well as honouring individual contributions by Australian screen directors to the screen industry. The Awards are the only opportunity for Australian directors and their work to be acknowledged by their directing peers. The Awards cover the breadth of screen directing with categories across feature film, documentary, television, subscription video on demand, commercial, short film, animation, online, music video and interactive media.
Submissions to the 2021 ADG Awards will open on 30th June.
The Australian Directors’ Guild (ADG) Executive Director Diana Burnett addressed the dire state of the nation’s creative industries in a statement that accompanied the 2020 ADG nominations, which were announced today.
“At these challenging times, it is more important than ever that we come together as a creative community to celebrate our achievements of the past year,” Burnett said. “Australian directors are creating fine work across all forms and genres and these nominations reflect the depth of talent in this country.”
A record 202 entries were received for the 2020 honours, awards that recognise excellence in the craft and art of directing. The peer-judged acknowledgements are the only opportunity for directors and their work to be acknowledged by their Guild peers.
The ADG singled out six filmmakers for nominations in the Best Direction in a Feature Film (with a budget of A$1million or over) category. They are Thomas Wright for Acute Misfortune; Sophie Hyde for Animals; John Sheedy for H is for Happiness; Ben Lawrence for Hearts and Bones; Wayne Blair for Top End Wedding; and, Natalie Erika James for Relic (pictured, above; Robyn Nevin, Bella Heathcote, James and Emily Mortimer).
Nominees for Best Direction in a Feature Film (budgeted under A$1million) category are: Josephine Mackerras for Alice (pictured, top); Imogen Thomas for Emu Runner; Lucy Colman for Hot Mess; Luke Sullivan for Reflections In The Dust; and, Samuel Van Grinsven for Sequin In A Blue Room.
Four factual-film craftspeople were acknowledged for Best Feature Documentary Direction - Ian Darling for The Final Quarter; Maya Newell for In My Blood It Runs (pictured, left; with the film's Margaret Anderson, right); Peter Hegedus for LILI; and, Allan Hardy for Viva The Underdogs. Directors in the mix for Best Documentary Short are Dr. Karen Pearlman for I Want To Write A Film About Women; Stefan Bugryn for War Mothers: Unbreakable; Logan Much for We’re All In This Together; and, Rob Innes for Youth On Strike!
The ADG Directors Award ceremony will be held in Sydney at the City Recital Hall on 19 October (pandemic restrictions pending), honouring nominees in a total of 19 categories across the film, television, online, music and advertising sectors. The full list can be found at the ADG’s website; a limited number of public tickets are available for the ceremony via Eventbrite.
Gods of Egypt director Alex Proyas has taken aim at the current crop of movie reviewers in the wake of his film’s critical mauling, calling them “diseased vultures”.
US critics have been scathing in their coverage of the latest work from the typically ambitious Proyas; at time of press, the US$140million production, shot largely in Australia, is at 17% on the Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus site and was posting opening weekend numbers in the low teens domestically.
Born in Egypt of Greek heritage, the Australian director debuted with the startling sci-fi vision, Spirits of The Air Gremlins of The Clouds (pictured, right) in 1989 and has an acclaimed resume of commercials and music videos to his name. Having relocated to Los Angeles in the early 90s, his feature film trajectory has endured a turbulent path; his 1994 American debut, the ill-fated The Crow, was a profitable hit, which he followed with the underperforming Dark City (now, a cult classic; 1998). He enjoyed blockbuster box office with the Will Smith hit, I Robot (2004), only to feel the sting of expensive failure with the 2009 misfire, Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage.
Proyas’ films have often divided critics, as he points out in the extensive diatribe that he posted on his Facebook page earlier today. Each work is a unique, complex genre vision that rarely fits comfortably within mainstream expectations. Even I, Robot, superficially a studio-backed/star vehicle summer tent-pole, was a morally ambiguous, thought-provoking murder mystery at its core. Critics have struggled to define Proyas’ work, usually praising his technical prowess and visionary scope but remaining bewildered or unengaged by his plotting.
But no work has been so savagely attacked as Gods of Egypt and Proyas clearly felt the need to even the playing-field. In his post, he addresses the accusations of ‘white-washing’ (the casting of Anglo actors in ethnically diverse roles); questions whether or not freedom of thought within the critical community exists anymore; alludes to the nature of social media and the need for acceptance within the ‘likes’-driven landscape. With the kind permission of the director, SCREEN-SPACE reproduces the post verbatim:
“NOTHING CONFIRMS RAMPANT STUPIDITY FASTER... Than reading reviews of my own movies. I usually try to avoid the experience - but this one takes the cake. Often, to my great amusement, a critic will mention my past films in glowing terms, when at the time those same films were savaged, as if to highlight the critic's flawed belief of my descent into mediocrity. You see, my dear fellow FBookers, I have rarely gotten great reviews… on any of my movies, apart from those by reviewers who think for themselves and make up their own opinions. Sadly those type of reviewers are nearly all dead. Good reviews often come many years after the movie has opened. I guess I have the knack of rubbing reviewers the wrong way - always have. This time of course they have bigger axes to grind - they can rip into my movie while trying to make their mainly pale asses look so politically correct by screaming "white-wash!!!” like the deranged idiots they all are. They fail to understand, or chose to pretend to not understand what this movie is, so as to serve some bizarre consensus of opinion which has nothing to do with the movie at all. That’s ok, this modern age of texting will probably make them go the way of the dinosaur or the newspaper shortly - don't movie-goers text their friends with what they thought of a movie? Seems most critics spend their time trying to work out what most people will want to hear. How do you do that? Why these days it is so easy... just surf the net to read other reviews or what bloggers are saying - no matter how misguided an opinion of a movie might be before it actually comes out. Lock a critic in a room with a movie no one has even seen and they will not know what to make of it. Because contrary to what a critic should probably be they have no personal taste or opinion, because they are basing their views on the status quo. None of them are brave enough to say “well I like it” if it goes against consensus. Therefore they are less than worthless. Now that anyone can post their opinion about anything from a movie to a pair of shoes to a hamburger, what value do they have - nothing. Roger Ebert wasn’t bad. He was a true film lover at least, a failed film-maker, which gave him a great deal of insight. His passion for film was contagious and he shared this with his fans. He loved films and his contribution to cinema as a result was positive. Now we have a pack of diseased vultures pecking at the bones of a dying carcass. Trying to peck to the rhythm of the consensus. I applaud any film-goer who values their own opinion enough to not base it on what the pack-mentality say is good or bad.”
In subsequent correspondence with SCREEN-SPACE, Proyas did acknowledge that his film, "seems to be getting a very good response critically and commercially everywhere outside the US."
It is the latest rebuke from a film community frustrated with the standard of modern film writing; last week, British director Ben Wheatley (pictured, right) aimed his own barbs at the current standard of film criticism. The director, whose films Kill List, Sightseers and A Field in England have enjoyed critical warmth, spoke out after a mixed reaction to his latest thriller, High Rise. “Talking about other people’s stuff is weird,” he told Flick Reel. “Why aren’t you making stuff? And if you aren’t, why should you really have a voice to complain about things until you’ve walked a mile in someone’s shoes?”
(Editor’s Note: SCREEN-SPACE gave a ‘4 star’ rating to Gods of Egypt on it’s official Letterboxd page on February 24. In 2009, this writer gave a mixed review to Knowing when contributing to the SBS Movies site.)
Sunday, June 27, 2021 at 8:45AM 
“I warmly welcome ACA as our new venue partner,” said ADG Executive Director Alaric McAusland (pictured, right). “The 2021 Awards will be an important moment to celebrate all that has been achieved by our members over the past year, a year which has offered incredible challenges and opportunities to Australian screen directors, as well as the achievements of the ADG over its 40-year history.”
Securing the ADG Awards is a further coup for the ACA, which continues to establish itself as one of the Harbour City’s premium event venues. “Actors Centre Australia is thrilled to be partnering with the ADG Awards in 2021,” said ACA Chief Operating Officer Anthony Kierann (pictured, left). “This celebration of the outstanding contribution that screen directors bring to our industry aligns with ACA’s commitment to developing the finest Australian on-screen talent. We warmly welcome ADG members and nominees to the Centre, as together, the arts community steps its way out of the pandemic.”
