2015 Audience Award Winners Announced

The Adelaide Film Festival today announced the results of its 2015 Foxtel Movies Audience Awards for Best Feature, Best Short and Best Documentary.

These awards are the people’s choice awards, and the winners reflect the most popular films seen at the Festival, which ran October 15-25 across Adelaide. After each screening, audience members were invited to rate each film and the results are:

Most Popular Feature – Girl Asleep, directed by Rosemary Myers, produced by Jo Dyer.

Funded by the Festival’s Film Investment Fund and developed out of the HIVE Lab, Girl Asleep is based on Windmill Theatre’s hit stage show – the coming of age drama was not only a critical favourite but loved just as much by audiences, screening to sell out sessions across the Festival.

Most Popular Short – Michelle’s Story, directed by Meryl Tankard, produced by Kate Croser.

Michelle’s Story, also funded by the Festival’s Investment Fund, is an uplifting look at the life of Adelaide-based dancer Michelle Ryan, who was one of Australia's leading artists, dancing under choreographer Meryl Tankard at the Australian Dance Theatre. From there she toured the world until her dancing came to an abrupt end after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Betrayed by her body she loses her career, mobility and marriage. This story offers insight into the world of dance and disability and the liberating power of art.

Most Popular Documentary – Remembering The Man, directed/produced by Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe.

At an exclusive Catholic boys school in Melbourne 1976, Tim Conigrave and John Caleo fell madly in love. Their passionate, tempestuous, operatic romance lasted for 16 years, facing disapproval, temptation, separation, and the looming shadow of the Grim Reaper. Their relationship has been immortalised in Conigrave's posthumous autobiography Holding the Man (now a major Australian film directed by Neil Armfield). This is the true story of how Romeo met Romeo and how first love can not last but endure.

Adelaide Film Festival Director Amanda Duthie said today: “It has been a fantastic film festival for Australian directors – especially women directors and producers. Congratulations to Meryl Tankard, Rosemary Myers and Eleanor Sharpe for these directorial achievements and to Nickolas Bird, co-director of Remembering the Man. The 2015 stats show that we presented 61 women directors and 54% of women key creative for the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund commissioned films.”

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Mark McGowan 0419 695 487