First time directors dominate AACTA nominations
Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 11:00AM
Travis C in AACTA, Australia, Babyteeth, Ben Mendelsohn, Eliza Scanlen, Essie Davis, George MacKay, Relic, Sam Neill, The Invisible Man, True History of the Kelly Gang

by Travis Cragg

Rising stars Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects) and George Mackay (1917) headline the AACTA frontrunners "Babyteeth" and "True History of the Kelly Gang"

COVID hasn’t delayed ALL the awards… The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts will have two ceremonies  one remote, the other with reduced capacity, on the 27th and 30th of this month. Not that AACTA gets much press. The nominations were announced a week ago to little fanfare but we'll share them here because we value Australian cinema.  The family cancer dramedy Babyteeth (which is current streaming on Hulu)leads the nominations for 2020, receiving nods in 12 out of a possible 13 categories (only missing out on Costume Design). Often in AACTA when a film is this dominant, it proceeds with a sweep (e.g. Somersault) or near-sweep (The Great Gatsby) of the awards on the night. Despite the possibility of a Babyteeth sweep, it certainly does have competition. Full nominations and a few comments after the jump...

Best Film
(links go to TFE's reviews)

Potential spoiler for the Babyteeth sweep? True History Of The Kelly Gang was close on its heels with 10 nominations, so it's a major alternative in most categories.

The other four – a small indie family movie, the Helen Reddy biopic, and two horror movies – have probably received their reward with the nomination itself. Personally, I was hoping that Relic would show up somewhere, so for it to be in the top category is exciting.

Best Direction 

Potential spoiler of a Babyteeth sweep? I suspect that Kurzel, previous winner of this award for Snowtown, has a decent shot, particularly with the vision he brought to the adaptation of an award-winning novel that many thought would be hard to make.

Best Lead Actor


Rams (our local remake of the Icelandic film) is quite popular here in cinemas at the moment, and Neill is quietly magnificent in it. But Mackay and Wallace are in the frontrunning films. 

Best Lead Actress

This category has international star-power but, if anyone is going to beat the fast rising Scanlen to the trophy (and I don’t think anything will), Tilda Cobham-Hervey would be a beneficiary of both baby-boomer nostalgia and sentiment about the recent passing of Helen Reddy. 

Best Supporting Actor

Likely supporting winners: Essie Davis & Ben Mendelsohn in "Babyteeth"

Another likely win for Babyteeth. The other three nominees don’t really stand a chance because of lack of name recognition, age (Patten is a kid) and/or tiny films. The only potential spoiler for the much-loved Mendelsohn would be Crowe, who hasn’t won an AACTA/AFI award since the early 90s (and should’ve won a couple of years ago, IMO, with Boy Erased)

Best Supporting Actress

We have two previous winners (Booth, Mailman) and two recognisable faces (if not names) here, but all are in low-profile films. Essie Davis was unlucky, in the year of The Babadook, to be up against the brilliance that was Sarah Snook in Predestination, AACTA owes her (as much as AACTA owes anybody, which is “not much” when in comparison with the Oscars. But I still think Davis will win.)

Best Screenplay

Babyteeth's too lose.

Best Cinematography 

Escape From Pretoria is a prison escape drama set in apartheid South Africa starring Daniel Radcliffe and we hear the cinematography is good. But it is the only nomination for that film… 

Best Editing

I Am Woman could spoil a Babyteeth sweep here. Dany Cooper has been a local film industry mainstay for a quarter century.

Best Sound

The unpredictability of the Sound category in AACTA is established, and it could equally go to a horror, a music biopic, a historical epic or a sweeping film.

Best Original Score

Best Production Design

The Invisible Man

In the tradition of Parasite and the house itself being a valuable character, I am both disappointed that Relic didn’t make it in here, and hoping that The Invisible Man takes the win.

 

Best Costume Design

on the set of "I Am Woman"

The only category where Babyteeth isn't competing! Kelly Gang could be the champ but there are a lot of baby boomers out there who love I Am Woman (to my personal bafflement) and who might want to celebrate the 60s and 70s fashions recreations.

 

Best Indie Film

Red Dog is a bit of a mini-franchise in Australia, so it is certainly the most recognisable name for canine-loving voters who remember the AACTA-winning original. 

Best Documentary

None of these are on Oscar's long list (yet). I’ve only seen one – Slim & I (one of two Kriv Stenders films nominated, the other being Brock) and it certainly was deserving of the nomination. Assuming it was eligible, I am personally a bit disappointed that The Leadership didn’t get in the mix.

Have you seen any of the films? Do you think Babyteeth will sweep? 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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