FILM CRITICS CIRCLE OF AUSTRALIA - ANNUAL AWARDS ANNOUNCEMENT - MEMOIR OF A SNAIL wins Best Picture

 May 13^th 2025

 

The Annual Film Critics Circle of Australia awards for outstanding Australian film were held on March 12^th 2025.

 

The Awards event was held at Paddington Woollahra RSL, hosted by FCCA President Rod Quinn

Rod Quinn commented, 

“This year’s nominees yet again highlight the diversity of subject matter from big international stories to intimate dramas and quirky comedies; they are all here on our screens. And this year the Australian documentaries are especially strong with two about the resilience of two sporting champions. It has been a very interesting year for Australian film.”

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The FCCA is the national body of professional film critics in Australia and a member of the international body of film critics, FIPRESCI. It has members in South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT.

Australian films eligible for the FCCA awards are those which have had a theatrical or public screening between January and December 2024. 

For the 2024 awards the FCCA will acknowledge eight categories for Australian feature films: Best Film,Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Actor and Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role.

 

 

 

The FCCA also highlights Best Australian Feature Documentary.

It was noted that the documentary Category this year had an exceptionally high standard of submissions.

There were two awards given in this category. 

 

NOMINATIONS AND WINNERS FOR THE FILMS OF 2024

Winners in highlighted in red.

 

BEST FILM

BETTER MAN                                                   

PAUL CURRIE (PGA), JULES DALY,   MICHAEL GRACEY (PGA), COCO XIAOLU MA, CRAIG McMAHON         

KID SNOW                                                        

BRUNO CHARLESWORTH, MEGAN WYNN, LIZZETTE ATKINS

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL                                         

ADAM ELLIOTT, LIZ KEARNEY 

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA                               

DOUG MITCHELL, GEORGE MILLER

BEST DIRECTOR

Adam Elliot

CAMERON CAIRNES, COLIN CAIRNES        LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

ADAM ELLIOT                                                  MEMOIR OF A SNAIL

MICHAEL GRACEY                                           BETTER MAN

GEORGE MILLER                                             FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

 

BEST ACTRESS

Phoebe Tonkin, Kid Snow

LEILA GEORGE                                               HE AIN’T HEAVY

SARAH SNOOK                                                MEMOIR OF A SNAIL

PHOEBE TONKIN                                             KID SNOW

ANNA TORV                                                     FORCE OF NATURE: THE DRY 2

JACKIE VAN BEEK                                          AUDREY

 

BEST ACTOR

Hugo Weaving, The Rooster

ERIC BANA                                                       FORCE OF NATURE: THE DRY 2

DAVID DASTMALCHIAN                                   LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

JONNO DAVIES                                                 BETTER MAN

BILLY HOWLE                                                    KID SNOW

HUGO WEAVING                                               THE ROOSTER

BEST SCREENPLAY 

CAMERON CAIRNES, COLIN CAIRNES            LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

JACK CLARK, JIM WEIR                                     BIRDEATER

ADAM ELLIOT                                                     MEMOIR OF A SNAIL

SIMON GLEESON, OLIVER COLE,                    BETTER MAN

MICHAEL GRACEY

DAVID VINCENT SMITH                                      HE AIN’T HEAVY

 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Eric Bana, Force of Nature: The Dry 2

ANDREW COMMIS                                            FORCE OF NATURE: THE DRY 2

SIMON DUGGAN                                               FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

MATT TEMPLETON                                            LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

ERIK A. WILSON                                                BETTER MAN

 

BEST ACTRESS – SUPPORTING ROLE

Ingrid Torelli, Late Night with the Devil

ALYA BROWN                                                     FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

KATE MULVANY                                                 BETTER MAN

GRETA SCACCHI                                               HE AIN’T HEAVY

INGRID TORELLI                                                 LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

 

BEST ACTOR – SUPPORTING ROLE

Damon Herriman, Better Man

FAYSSAL BAZZI                                                   LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

CHRIS HEMSWORTH                                          FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

DAMON HERRIMAN                                             BETTER MAN

RICHARD ROXBURGH                                         FORCE OF NATURE: THE DRY 2

 

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY

A HORSE NAMED WINX                                      DIRECTOR: JANINE HOSKING                                                                          OTTO BY OTTO                                                   DIRECTOR: GRACIE OTTO

THE POOL                                                            DIRECTOR: IAN DARLING                                                                            

THE ROAD TO PATAGONIA                                 DIRECTOR MATTY HANNON

UNBREAKABLE: THE JELENA DOKIC STORY    DIRECTORS: IVAN O’MAHONEY                                                                                     JESSICA  HALLORAN                          WELCOME TO BABEL                                        DIRECTOR:JAMES BRADLEY

A PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE FCCA AWARDS NIGHT

The FCCA gratefully thanks the supporters of the 2024 Awards SEE SAW FILMS, BUNYA PRODUCTIONS, MADMAN, ALLEN & UNWIN

 

CINEMA REBORN - MELBOURNE SCREENINGS START TODAY - HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

 

HIGHLIGHTS TO COME The Melbourne Cinema Reborn screenings get under way today at 2.30 with a screening of the French classic FORBIDDEN GAMES.  It will be followed by the first screening of McCABE & MRS MILLER  and the evening will conclude with Andrei Tarkovsky’s THE SACRIFICE. That session is already sold out but there is another screening on Monday and you can book for that via the Lido Cinemas website. We want to mention to you that the program screening at 5.30 pm on Friday 9 May is HOW THE WEST WAS LOST and BREAD AND DRIPPING. This program was screened to a hugely appreciative near sell out house on our closing night in Sydney. HOW THE WEST WAS LOST was introduced by film-maker David Noakes  and by Rose Murray a Nyangumarta woman and a descendant of the original strikers who feature in the film. Both David and Rose will also be in Melbourne for the screening tomorrow and will be conducting a post-film conversation. If you head for the Cinema Reborn website you can read extensive program noteson all our films and this includes some superb writing from David and Rose about HOW THE WEST WAS LOST.  In the run up to the Melbourne season we have some more local media to report. The screen discussion program on Melbourne’s 3RRR Primal Screen has a lively conversation between host Flic Ford and Cinema Reborn Organising Committee Members Digby Houghton and Grace Boschetti. And the terrific website Rough Cut has a report of a conversation with Organising Committee Members Angelica Waite and James Vaughan in which they talk about the Cinema Reborn’s ethics and origins, the magic of sharing new restorations of classic and underseen works of exceptional, world-spanning cinema, and what to expect from this year’s edition. Other shows on Friday include Carlos Saura’s CRIA CUERVOS (1.15pm), Julien Duvivier’s PEPE LE MOKO (3.30 pm introduced by Kevin Cassidy), TOUCH OF EVIL(7.10 pm introduced by Adrian Danks) and DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS  (9.30 pm introduced by Janice Loreck). Click on the film titles for links to bookings  for these sessions at the Lido Cinemas. Lido Movie Club concessions apply for all sessions and students tickets are $15.  CHARITABLE DONATIONS There is still time for our supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support our work. There are significant costs, most notably our screening fees, which have to be met each year and we are always grateful for the financial support we receive that defrays these costs and charges and enables us to keep our tickets at regular prices. If you would like to make a donation you may do so via the Australian Cultural Fund, a service which enables small unincorporated organisations like ours to access this taxation benefit. To make a tax deductible donation, small or large, any time between now and the end of Cinema Reborn 2025 click on this link to the Australian Cultural Fund

CINEMA REBORN - WEEKEND PREVIEW (1) - McCABE & MRS MILLER, SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, HOW THE WEST WAS LOST and more.

 

Thanks to Jason Di Rosso of the ABC Radio National Screen Show for a splendid interview with David Noakes on yesterday’s program. The discussion about the birth and rebirth of David’s magnificent  documentary HOW THE WEST WAS LOST, screening at the Ritz on Tuesday 6 May at 6.00 pm and at the Lido on Friday 8 May at 5.30 pm, was warm, enlightening and hugely enthusiastic about the prospects for this film to once again influence the ongoing debate in Australia about the history of our relations with the Indigenous community. It's now available on ABCI-view. The segment with David starts at about the 24” mark and runs for close to half an hour. Great radio. Saturday and Sunday are densely packed days for Cinema Reborn. Six films each day from eight different countries, ranging from the silent masterpiece STELLA DALLAS restored by New York’s Museum of Modern Art through to two programs of autobiographical documentaries by Australian women film-makers Rivka Hartman & Lee Whitmore and Anna Kannava. Likely to attract the biggest crowds are our two Saturday evening presentations so here’s a little more information to help you decide to join the throngs. McCABE & MRS MILLER is Robert Altman’s remarkable western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. Critic Roger Ebert laid it out "(It) is like no other Western ever made, and with it, Robert Altman earns his place as one of the best contemporary directors…Robert Altman has made a dozen films that can be called great in one way or another, but one of them is perfect, and that one is McCabe and Mrs Miller” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times In the Program Notes published on the website and the printed catalogue critic Adrian Martin recalls his first youthful encounter with the film and in particular the music of Leonard Cohen which threads its way through the soundtrack. “Like many teenage cinephiles in the 1970s, I realised that the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to possess a piece of a beloved film was to run an audio cable from my TV set into a humble tape recorder – which is not such a simple procedure today. That’s how, at any rate, I came, once upon a time, to listen so obsessively to the soundtrack (not the soundtrack album – there wasn’t one) of McCabe& Mrs. Miller (1971). Even more than the sheer presence of Leonard Cohen’s haunting songs, I was bowled over by the strange dialogue between the lyrics and other elements in the sound mix: Cohen’s ‘I told you …’ echoed, moments later, by Warren Beatty as McCabe mumbling to himself: ‘I told you …’. Was that planned, or a serendipitous collision discovered in editing? Ladies and Gentlemen and others, welcome to the cinema of Robert Altman.” Full notes and links to bookings SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS is Sergei Parajanov’s masterpiece of folk art: Here’s a paragraph from Laleen Jayamanne’s program notes. “The film is based on a tale of legendary star-crossed lovers, and their lost love sets the tone and framework for presenting the everyday life and key rituals of the tribe, such as a wedding, a funeral and Christmas with pagan overtones in the use of grotesque masks. These events are performed in unusual ways presented in disjunct non-chronological sequencing, an aspect of Parajanov’s poetic idiom. Later, this fascination with masks and the idea ofthe puppet (in popular folk theatre and in the Soviet avant-garde), influenced how he directed his actors who also danced in his major films. It’s best to relax into the rhythms of the film and ritualised gestures, instead of trying to “grasp” at meaning, and in that relaxed state the film may speak to you in unexpected ways, as Parajanov’s films are wont to do.” Full notes and links to bookings CINEMA REBORN View

CINEMA REBORN - MEDIA COVERAGE, HIGHLIGHTS FOR FRIDAY 2 MAY and ORSON WELLES -

 

We had a flying start to our season last night when a near capacity crowd marvelled at George Cukor’s remarkable HOLIDAY. Superb intro by Jane Mills and much chat in the Ritz Bar well into the night. It’s having a second and final Sydney screening today at 2.30pm. Tickets still available at the door. The conversation about Cinema Reborn’s 2025 has gone international with a wonderful preview by David Hudson on the Criterion Collection website. CLICK HERE Meanwhile thanks to Joy Media in Melbourne you can listen to a terrific report on DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS on the station’s Out Takes program. It opens with a discussion of the film between host Conrad and Demetra Giannakopoulos and is followed by a great conversation between Demetra and Janice Loreck who is introducing the film  at its screening at the Lido Cinemas on Friday 9 May.  It goes on at the start of the program. YOU CAN LISTEN HERE And across the nation everyone can tune into the ABC Radio National Screen Show today (Thursday) at 10.00 am and repeated Friday at 9.00 pm)  when Jason Di Rosso will be talking to David Noakes about HOW THE WEST WAS LOST, David’s remarkable film about the years long strike by Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Pilbara that started in 1946 and never really finished. Meanwhile just letting you know that our hottest Friday ticket, no surprise, is Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL.  Here are the opening two paras of Rod Bishop’s excellent program notes: “Orson Welles returned to Hollywood in 1958 after a ten year absence and set about transforming a minor American novel – described by Francois Truffaut as a ‘woefully poor little detective story’ – into an operatic film noir.  ”Crowded, festering main streets and desolate, scary back alleys are the backdrop to Welles’ fictional Mexican border town of Los Robles. There are bars, strip clubs, cheap motels and destitute hotels. His cast are strippers, soldiers, youth gangs, sexual psychopaths, gringos, Chicanos, and good and bad cops. Below the surface, it’s a boiling cauldron of race, oil, sex, drugs, implied rape and murder.” To read Rod’s notes, which are also in our printed catalogue, session times and links to bookings  CLICK ON THIS LINK Tickets also on sale at the Ritz Box Office. Regular Ritz prices. Students $15 and Ritz Movie Club concessions available. Other shows on Friday include MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (12.45 pm), McCABE & MRS MILLER (2.45 pm) FORBIDDEN GAMES (5.15 pm) and DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (9.30 pm). For full program details, all session times, comprehensive program notes,  and links to bookings CLICK HERE CHARITABLE DONATIONS There is still time for our supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support our work. There are significant costs, most notably our screening fees, which have to be met each year and we are always grateful for the financial support we receive that defrays these costs and charges and enables us to keep our tickets at regular prices. If you would like to make a donation you may do so via the Australian Cultural Fund, a service which enables small unincorporated organisations like ours to access this taxation benefit. To make a tax deductible donation, small or large, any time between now and the end of Cinema Reborn 2025 click on this link to theAustralian Cultural Fund

CINEMA REBORN OPENING SCREENING WEDNESDAY 30 APRIL + PROGRAM FOR THURSDAY 1 MAY

 

Quick reminders of our programmes for the first two days.  Tickets for all sessions may be booked online or in person at the Ritz box office. Cinema Reborn charges regular Ritz prices and the lowest student concessions of any venue. Concessions for Ritz Movie Club members apply for all sessions https://www.ritzcinemas.com.au/events/cinemareborn-2025 Some quotes from the extensive programme notes now posted on our website. HOLIDAY (George Cukor, USA, 1938) @ 7.00 pm on Wednesday 30 April and @ 2.30 pm on Thursday 1 May “Despite Cary Grant demonstrating that he could still do the back-flips and somersaults of his vaudeville days, Holiday is less a screwball comedy than a fable, in which, as in My Man Godfrey and Tovarich, a few principled individuals educate the decadent rich. …Whether frenetic with enthusiasm or languishing in despair, (Katharine) Hepburn dominates every scene in which she appears.” John Baxter For information on session times, full program notes and links to bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/Holiday PÉPÉ LE MOKO (Julien Duvivier, France, 1937) @ 4.45 pm on Thursday 1 May and @ 1.45pm on Tuesday 6 May “Described as ‘one of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing’, by the writer Graham Greene at the time, Pépé le Moko (1937) remains Duvivier’s best-known work. It is set in the Casbah district of Algiers, a maze-like quarter where French police struggle to capture the elusive Pépé, a notorious Parisian gangster hiding from the law. Though he is safe in the Casbah, due to its protective community and his ability to avoid capture, Pépé feels trapped, yearning for his former life in Paris. That sense of imprisonment intensifies when he falls in love with Gaby, a glamorous Parisian tourist. Their romance stirs Pépé's longing for freedom but also seals his tragic fate. Duvivier’s film is about impossible desire and the implacable workings of fate, two themes that run deep in his work.” Ben McCann For information on session times, full program notes and links to bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/Pepe-le-Moko THE SACRIFICE (Andrei Tarkovsky, Sweden/France/UK, 1986) @ 7.00 pm on Thursday 1 May and @ 8.10 pm on Monday 5 May “The Sacrifice (1986), Andrei Tarkovsky's third and final film in exile, stands as a powerful testament to the director's enduring preoccupation with nature, spilt milk, rumbling silence, mute children, levitation, mysticism, spirituality and the long, long shot. This is a film about faith and hope and the (possibly) misguided belief that one person’s sacrifice can have a positive impact on others. It is a film worthy of watching and rewatching, as it is a parable that deserves discussion and reinterpretation, especially now that we are far closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock than we were in 1986. And yet, the anxiety about an impending nuclear war seemed much higher then than now.” Greg Dolgopolov For information on session times, full program notes and links to bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/The-Sacrifice