Overview
After 12 days, around 300 films and more hours spent sitting in cinemas than anyone might like to admit, the Sydney Film Festival wrapped up their 64th fest by naming On Body and Soul as the winner of this year's Sydney Film Prize. The Hungarian feature took home SFF's $60,000 cash award for 'audacious, cutting-edge and courageous' filmmaking, topping a 12-movie competition filled with an eclectic and interesting array of features — ranging from We Don't Need a Map's exploration of what the Southern Cross means to Australians, to The Untamed's blend of social realism and erotic sci-fi, to Sofia Coppola's Cannes best director winner The Beguiled.
"It's a film that shows us that even in this divided world we are capable of sharing the same dreams, that amongst the ugliness of a slaughterhouse, kindness, gentleness can be found," said 2017 jury president Margaret Pomeranz. The unconventional romance follows two lonely workers in a Budapest abattoir who not only share the same employer and same sense of malaise, but drift into same animal-filled world when they slumber. It's the movie's second prestigious award this year, after picking up the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in February. That's not a bad haul for writer/director Ildikó Enyedi, particularly given that On Body and Soul is her first film in 18 years. She's also the first female filmmaker to win the competition in its ten-years — she joins Sofia Coppola in making history, who was this year the first female to win Best Director at Cannes in the festival's 56 years.
The feature joins the hefty list of previous official competition winners, with Aquarius (2016), Arabian Nights (2015), Two Days, One Night (2014), Only God Forgives (2013), Alps (2012), A Separation (2011), Heartbeats (2010), Bronson (2009) and Hunger (2008) emerging victorious in the past. But it's not the only effort that picked up a gong at this year's closing night — SFF also awards the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary, with $10,000 going to The Pink House's portrait of Kalgoorlie's last original gold rush brothel.
Then there's the fest's short film prizes — the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films — which have been running for a whopping 48 years. To date, the shorts awards have helped launch the careers of Warwick Thornton (2017 opening night flick We Don't Need a Map), Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome), Jane Campion (Top of the Lake) and Ivan Sen (2016 opener Goldstone), among others. In 2017, Dendy Live Action Short Award recipient Mirene Igwabi (Adele), and dual winner Daniel Agdag (Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director and Yoram Gross Animation Award, both for Lost Property Office) will be hoping to follow in their footsteps — plus Michael Cusack, who won the Event Cinemas Australian Short Screenplay Award for his stop motion animation After All.
