Senegalese Debut ‘Banel & Adama,’ Soda Jerk’s ‘Hello Dankness’ Top Award Winners at Melbourne Film Festival

On the final weekend of a bustling 18-day event, the in-person edition of this years Melbourne Film Festival has drawn to a close with an awards ceremony that saw a whopping $300,000 AUD (over $191,000 USD) in prize money handed out across six categories. The biggest individual award of $140,000 AUD (nearly $90,000 USD) was presented to the winner of the fests international Bright Horizons competition: Banel Adama, an arresting debut feature by Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy.

Its a notable coup for a small-scale rural love story that turned heads but won no prizes when it premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and is still seeking distribution in the U.S. and other major territories. Reviewing the film out of Cannes, Variety critic Jessica Kiang commended the subtly seductive power of a striking debut [that] revolves with graceful poetry around the inner experiences of a curious, unknowable woman.

Its win came against formidable competition in the Bright Horizons selection, including such buzzy titles as Molly Manning Walkers Cannes Un Certain Regard winner How to Have Sex and Phm Thin ns haunting debut Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell which, back on the Croisette, beat Banel Adama to the Camera dOr prize.

Jointly chairing the jury were musician and filmmaker Saul Williams and his co-director Anisia Uzeyman, who won last years inaugural Bright Horizons award with their inventive Afro-futurist vision Neptune Frost their fellow jurors included filmmakers Alexandre O. Philippe (78/52, Lynch/Oz), Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo, The Breaking Ice) and Kamila Andini (The Seen and Unseen, Yuni). In a collective statement, they described Sys debut as a film that speaks directly to the times with a cinematic language and landscape that challenges and confronts while drawing you into its immense beauty and a mysterious and strong first film from a young filmmaker with bright horizons.

They further offered a special mention to another female filmmaker, Mexican writer-director Lila Avils, whose freewheeling family drama Ttem was a critics favourite at the Berlinale in February (before being rather surprisingly shut out by Kristen Stewarts jury). The rich subtleties and nuance of this circular story draws us in and makes us a part of its family, the Melbourne jury stated.

Williams and Uzeymans jury also determined the Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award a $70,000 AUD (nearly $45,000 USD) prize restricted to homegrown talent to avant-garde sibling filmmakers Dominique and Dan Angeloro, professionally known as Soda Jerk.

Already celebrated on the experimental scene for such sample-based works as Terror Nullius and After the Rainbow, theyve been traveling the festival circuit over the past year with their latest Hello Dankness, a swirling visual essay that reflects on Trumpism, COVID and other recent sociopolitical matters via multimedia fragments that range from Waynes World to Reddit. The jury called it a clear-eyed, sharply satirical take on one of Americas most troubling chapters, transformative use of existing footage, and groundbreaking manipulation thereof. Hello Dankness will receive a limited Stateside release on September 8.

The First Nations Film Creative Award, for outstanding filmmaking and storytelling talent from Australias First Nations population, was presented to Adrian Russell Wills and Gillian Moodys documentary Kindred, an autobiographical reflection on Aboriginal children removed from their birth families.

Another local documentary, meanwhile, took both the festivals much-contested Audience Award and its Youth Jury Award: Thomas Charles Hylands auspiciously titled This Is Going to Be Big, a tender portrait of a high school for neurodivergent teens as they stage an ambitious musical, proved a word-of-mouth crowdpleaser as the festival unfolded. Thematically, it segued rather aptly into the nights Closing Gala, Molly Gordon and Nick Liebermans Sundance-premiered comedy Theater Camp.

As a collective of winners, ranging from daringly subversive esoterica to audience-friendly heartwarmers, it reflects the spread of a vast, diverse festival program (numbering 267 films this year) that also saw fresh innovations in its retrospective sections. Months after her death in February, a career tribute to groundbreaking Senegalese docmaker Safi Faye the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa ever to direct a commercially distributed feature introduced legions of cinephiles to her under-seen work.

A new section, Critical Condition, invited international critics mentoring on the festivals adjacent Critics Campus program for new writers to present a favorite classic or undervalued film and moderate a post-screening discussion to contextualize it for contemporary audiences. For this critic, getting to present Rainer Werner Fassbinders feverishly homoerotic swansong Querelle to a sold-out house despite roaring competition from crowds assembled for Australias quarter-final triumph in the soccer World Cup that same night was the enduring joy of a festival rich in revelations.

Full list of Melbourne Film Festival winners:

Bright Horizons Award (presented by VicScreen): Banel Adama, directed by Ramata-Toulaye Sy

Bright Horizons Special Jury Mention: Ttem, directed by Lila Avils

Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award: Soda Jerk, directors of Hello Dankness

First Nations Film Creative Award in collaboration with Kearney Group: Adrian Russell Wills and Gillian Moody, directors of Kindred

MIFF Audience Award: This Is Going to Be Big, directed by Thomas Charles Hyland

MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award: This Is Going to Be Big, directed by Thomas Charles Hyland