The 30th annual Canberra Short Film Festival celebrated in style on Saturday night at Dendy Cinemas, where audiences enjoyed a program of selected short films before the awards ceremony.

The screenings opened with filmed introductions from all five past festival directors — Cris Kennedy, Marissa Martin, Kristian Doran, Simon Weaving — and current director John Frohlich, who will now officially hand the reins to incoming director Bruce Davie.

This year’s program showcased the festival’s trademark breadth and originality. Audiences encountered mostly quirky and original tales.

National Best Directing Award went to David Robinson-Smith’s The Shirt Off Your Back, where two boys meet a mysterious shirt-loving stranger (or maybe strangers) in an abandoned carpark.

Then there’s the craziest Parent Teacher Interview you ever saw in Ben Knight’s National Best Film winner of the same name.

We saw sharp social commentary in Typeface, Tom Pugh’s animation critiquing workplace conformity, which won Best Canberra Animation, as well as  music videos that revealed a different side of local screen artistry.

To mark its anniversary the festival, which responded to filmmaking talent at international, national, Canberra, student, experimental and First Nations levels, also expanded well beyond Dendy, presenting films at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Smith’s Alternative, PhotoAccess and Kambri Cinema.

The recipients’ list 

INTERNATIONAL

Best Film – Berta, Lucía Forner Segarra
Best Directing – Growing Still, Alyx Duncan
Best Cinematography – DOKHTAR’AM – My Daughter, Adam Kaiser-Lynch
Best Sound Design – Prayer of the Sea, Adam-Luka Turjak
Best Score – Growing Still, Martin Gerigk
Best Editing – The Secret Assistants, Cyrielle Thélot
Best Screenplay – The Secret Assistant, Katey Lee Carson
Best Art/Production Design – Growing Still, John Harding
Best Actor – That’s for This Christmas, Lubomir Buchvarov
Best Actress – Berta, Nerea Barros
Highly Commended – Shouting at the Sea; Collage; Shell

NATIONAL

Best Film – The Parent Teacher Interview, Ben Knight
Best Directing – The Shirt Off Your Back, David Robinson-Smith
Best Cinematography – A Beautiful Resistance, Lachlan Ross
Best Editing – The Parent Teacher Interview, David Chea and Team Yas
Best Screenplay – Not Yet, Sami Swilks
Best Art/Production Design – The Mark, Craig Bornstein
Best Actor – The Parent Teacher Interview, Ben Knight
Best Actress – Not Yet, Sara West
Best Comedy – Set Menu, Lindsay McDonald, Neisha Dallamora, Roslyn Zhang
Highly Commended – Hero; The Devil You Know

CANBERRA

Best Film – Over, Duncan Ragg and Anna Phillips
Best Directing – A Beautiful Resistance, Lachlan Ross
Best Cinematography – In and Out, James Hiscutt
Best Sound Design/Score – Metamorphosis, Mert Boyali
Best Editing – Metamorphosis, Callum Lawrence

Best Screenplay – Over, Duncan Ragg and Anna Phillips
Best Art/Production Design – In and Out, Adi Watters
Best Choreography – Dance with Death, Liz Creevey
Best Visual/SFX – Metamorphosis
Highly Commended – Avarice; First Aid, Adam Ali; Dan Sanguineti
Emerging Talent – The Man Who Saw Himself, Jack Downie

MUSIC VIDEO

Best Film – Discothèque Inside My Head, Angeline Armstrong
Highly Commended – Holy Ghost, James Hiscutt; Self Destruct – Peach Lane, Sean O’Gorman; Foster the People – Lost in Space, Rupert Höller; We Are Australia, Jon-Claire Lee

ANIMATION

Best Animation – If/When, Courtney Westbrook
Best Canberra Animation – Typeface, Tom Pugh
Best Animation Craft – 3 Birds, Zarja Menart
Best Claymation – Joko, Izabela Plucińska
Highly Commended – No Room, Zarko You Will Spoil the Child (Jelena Oroz); Not in the Mood, Cameron Tyler; Gardening, Sarah Beeby; Zarko You Will Spoil The Child, Veljko Popovic and Milivoj Popovic

FIRST NATIONS STORIES

Best Film – Ngarridurndeng Kured, Emma Masters and Dean Munuggullumurr Yibarbuk
Runner Up – NGADJURI Spirit and Songs of Country, Quenten Agius and Kim Mavromatis; Wadjemup Wirin Bidi, Dr Glen Stasiuk
Highly Commended – Indai Apai Darah, Kynan Tegar

SCHOOLS / UNDER 18

Best Film – Breaking Point, Lazar Jovanović
Best Canberra Film – Avarice, Adam Ali
Highly Commended – Let’s Live for Tonight, Chase Bradshaw; Echo, Bradfield Senior College; Man or Bear?, Ivy Tucker

DOCUMENTARY

Best Film – A Beautiful Resistance, Lachlan Ross
Best Canberra Documentary – The Circle, Clare Young
Best Under 20 Documentary – Try to Remember Please, Maria Dudko
Highly Commended – The Sharks, Stuart Clegg; Darlinghurst Eats Its Young, Madeleine Preston; While We Still Have Time, Ava Grimshaw-Hall; 8 Minutes, Tim Stiles; The Oldest Heart, Jessica Sherlock

EXPERIMENTAL

Best Experimental Film – Archive Fever, Haesol Kim
Highly Commended – The Exclusion Principle, Ian Gibbins; Prayer of the Sea, Martin Gerigk; Common, Jade Schmutter; Everything Could Be a Film, Nicci Haynes

2-MINUTE FILM

Best Film – Waves, Katharina Keil
Highly Commended – Unemployment Benefits, Advitha Harini and Megan Teo

SUE BLAINEY AWARD

Big Johnny, Jeanie Kane