Inaugural AACTAs Announced
The inaugural winners of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards have been announced during three separate events between 15 and 31 January 2012.
As anticipated, the box office favourite Red Dog — an adaptation of a Louis de Bernieres novella — won the award for Best Film. In other categories, The Slap won the award for Best Telefeature, Mini Series or Short Run Series. The television version of Christos Tsiolkas’s novel also collected the award for Best Screenplay in Television (Brendan Cowell for episode three, Harry).
Other writing awards went to Leon Ford for Griff the Invisible (Best Original Screenplay), Shaun Grant for Snowtown (Best Adapted Screenplay) and Anthony Maras for The Palace (Best Screenplay in a Short Film).
The AACTA Awards are ‘a continuum of the ... heritage established by the Australian Film Institute's (AFI) Awards’. A full list of inaugural winners is available on the AACTA website.