Jungleboys’ Wayne Blair wins Best Director at last night’s AACTA Awards for The Sapphires
Already named by Variety as one of the top ten directors to watch in 2013, Jungleboys director Wayne Blair has now won Best Director for The Sapphires at the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts (AACTA) Awards held last night in Sydney.
On top of taking home Best Director, the film scored Best Film, along with nine other categories. The musical comedy about an all-female Aboriginal singing troop was also the country’s highest grossing Australian box office feature film of 2012.
Since opening at the Cannes Film Festival last year, The Sapphires has played at festivals including Telluride, Toronto, Aspen, Zurich and Hamburg. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film closed with a 10-minute standing ovation from the festive audience at its Cannes’ midnight screening.
Says Blair: “I feel very proud to be at the helm of this film. I love telling stories through moving images and this being my first film, I just want to keep making more. This accolade is the icing on the cake for what has been an amazing year that began in Cannes in 2012.
“This film will now travel to every territory and country in the world, which is great for an Australian film. I’ll now go on to represent Australia in introducing this film to the US market via Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company.”
The AACTA Awards see practitioners from a broad cross-section of crafts come together to be recognised for outstanding work within their fields and for their overall contribution to the Australian film and television industry.
Blair is keen to move into directing TV commercials this year, along with keeping up his TV and feature film commitments.
1 Comment
Great movie, well deserved, hats off!