49th Festival 2002

This year the FIPRESCI Award for Documentary Filmmaking was introduced, following in the footsteps of many other festivals who had introduced the award in 2000. This would put an ever-greater focus on documentary cinema within a festival that had often screened more documentary than narrative cinema over the course of its history.

Films screened included Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water, Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, Spike Lee’s A Huey P. Newton Story, the infamous Lost in La Mancha documentary, which chronicled Terry Gilliam’s attempts to film Cervates’ Don Quixote, Alex and Andrew Smith’s The Slaughter Rule, Scorsese’s My Voyage to Italy and Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World.

A spotlight on Iranian cinema was held, in addition to retrospectives of Jean Eustache’s films and early American avant-garde cinema.

The Ian McPherson Memorial lecture was delivered by Nik Powell.

Opening Night Film: Black and White (directed by Craig Lahiff)

Closing Night Film: Y Tu Mamá También (directed by Alfonso Cuarón)

Award Winners

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films (General):

Beginnings, directed by Husein

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films (Fiction over 15 minutes):

New Skin, directed by Anthony Hayes

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films(Fiction under 15 minutes):

Living with Happiness, directed by Sarah Watt

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films (Documentary):

Troubled Waters, directed by Ruth Balint

Yoram Gross Animation Award:

Dad’s Clock, directed by Dik Jarman

Community Relations Commission (CRC) Award

My Mother India, directed by Safina Uberoi

Rouben Mamoulian Award

Safina Uberoi, director of My Mother India