Monster Fest announces 2016 award winners
Australia’s premier genre film festival Monster Fest wrapped its most successful edition to date last night in Melbourne with official closing film The Greasy Strangler (with actors Sky Elobar and Elizabeth De Razzo in person) followed by its annual awards ceremony acknowledging the best of this year’s impressive lineup.
The features jury, consisting of Fantastic Fest head programmer Evrim Ersoy, filmmaker Donna McRae and longtime screen critic Simon Foster awarded the festival’s top prize, The Golden Monster, to Julia Ducournau’s Raw, with Ducournau in person to accept her award, beautifully designed and sculpted by Rain Gidley Studios. Raw also walked away with an honour for best FX.
“Monsters Choice” audience awards also went to two of Nerdly’s current favourite Ozploitation filmmakers: Stuart Simpson (Monstro!, Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla) for his short Dragon Force; and Addison Heath (Under a Kaleidoscope) for his new feature Mondo Yakuza.
The full list of Monster Fest 2016 award winners is below:
Feature Films:
Golden Monster: RAW (Julia Ducournau, France)
Best International Feature: THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (André Øvredal, USA)
Best Australian Feature: SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD (Chris Peckover, Australia)
Monster Innovation Award: PREVENGE (Alice Lowe, UK)
Best Performance (Male): Levi Miller, SAFE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Chris Peckover, Australia)
Best Performance (Female): Mackenzie Davis, ALWAYS SHINE (Sophia Takal, USA)
Best Documentary: SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: THE TRUE STORY OF THE PROCESS CHURCH OF THE FINAL JUDGEMENT (Neil Edwards, UK)
Best Director: PLAYGROUND (Bartosz M. Kowalsi, Poland)
Best Cinematography: A DARK SONG (Liam Gavin, Ireland/UK)
Best Score: A DARK SONG (Liam Gavin, Ireland/UK)
Best FX: RAW (Julia Ducournau, France)
Special Mention: AUTOHEAD (Rohit Mittal, India)
Short Films:
Best International Short: THE TUNNEL (André Øvredal, Norway)
Best Australian Short: INSOMNOLENCE (Kiefer Findlow, Australia)
Best Victorian Short: SECRETIONS (Goran Spoljaric, Australia)
Best Director: WHAT HAPPENED TO HER (Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, USA)
Best Screenplay: THE INCREDIBLE TALE OF THE INCREDIBLE WOMAN-SPIDER (Pablo Guirado, France)
Best Performance: Najarra Townsend, THE STYLIST (Jill Gevargizian, USA)
Best Effects: THE PAST INSIDE THE PRESENT (James Siewert, USA)
Best Cinematography: DISCO INFERNO (Alice Waddington, Spain)
Best Score: IMITATIONS (Fabian Velasco & Milos Mitrovic, Canada)
Honourable Mentions:
Best Villain: O CHRISTMAS TREE (Greg Kovacs, Canada)
Best Animation: THE ITCHING (Diane Bellino, USA)
Honorable Mention for short we’d like to see made into a feature: DAWN OF THE DEAF (Rob Savage, UK)
Trasharama Awards:
Trasharama Golden Lomax Award: THE CONTRACT (Chrzu Lindstrom, Finland)
Trasharama Encouragement Award: BLOWN AWAY (Frank Daft, Australia)
“Monster’s Choice” Audience Awards:
Best Feature: MONDO YAKUZA (Addison Heath, Australia)
Best Short: Tie: DRAGON FORCE (Stuart Simpson, Australia) / A HELL OF A DAY (Evan Hughes, Australia)
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The 6th edition of Monster Fest ran from November 24th – 27th at the Lido Cinemas, Melbourne.
