52nd Festival 2005

This was Lynden Barber’s first year as Festival Director. Films screened included Susanne Bier’s Brothers, Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Emir Kusturica’s Life is a Miracle, Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro’s Murderball, Jacob Estes’ Mean Creek and Greg Araki’s Mysterious Skin.

There were restoration screenings of Michael Powell’s Age of Consent, a program of new Argentine cinema, a tribute to the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association on its 25th Anniversary and a program called Rock Flicks that concerned exactly that, films about rock’n’roll.

There was also a series of films grouped together under the umbrella of The Big Picks – Australia’s leading cinematographers were asked for films that inspired their work and they introduced them at special screenings. Films in this series included Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, Jarmusch’s Dead Man and the recent Michael Mann thriller Collateral.

The Ian McPherson lecture was delivered by Bird Runningwater.

Opening Night Film: My Summer of Love (directed by Pawel Pawlikowski)

Closing Night Film: Howl’s Moving Castle (directed by Hayao Miyazaki)

Award Winners

Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films (Fiction over 15 minutes)

Green Bush, directed by Warwick Thornton

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

62 Sleeps, directed by Erin White

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films (Documentary):

The Men Who Would Conquer China, directed by Nick Torrens and Jane St. Vincent Welch

Dendy Award for Australian Short Films (Experimental):

The First Thing I Remember, directed by Tamara Meem

Community Relations Committee (CRC) Award:

Jewboy, directed by Tony Krawitz

Yoram Gross Animation Award:

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, directed by Anthony Lucas

Rouben Mamoulian Award:

Warwick Thornton, director of Green Bush