Each year, the prestigious Sydney Film Prize is awarded to one film screening in the Official Competition, with a jury of industry professionals awarding a $60,000 prize to the winning filmmaker. The criteria is to award the year’s most “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous” film.
Past winners include Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008), Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011), Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite (2019) and Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies (2023).
Past jury members include Australian filmmakers such as Rachel Perkins (Radiance) and Jennifer Peedom (Sherpa), as well as international directors such as Kazuhiro Soda – returning to the Festival this year with his beautiful documentary The Cats of Gogoku Shrine.
In 2024, the Official Competition jury will be led by Oscar winning Bosnian writer and director Danis Tanović.
A graduate of the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts, his debut film No Man’s Land earned over 40 international awards – including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Danis will be joined on the jury by Indonesian filmmaker and SFF favourite Kamila Andini. Her second feature film The Seen and Unseen premiered at TIFF before going on to win the Grand Prix in the Generation plus category at the Berlinale. This and her succeeding films Yuni and Before, Now & Then screened at SFF.
Also travelling to Sydney is American producer Jay Van Hoy. Van Hoy’s credits include The Witch, Beginners, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, The Lighthouse, and American Honey, and he was an advisor at the Sundance Creative Producer Lab for over 10 years.
The Australian filmmakers on the jury this year are Sheila Jayadev, a producer whose credits include Ali’s Wedding (SFF Audience Award Winner 2017) and Here Out West (SFF Opening Night 2021), and director Tony Krawitz. Krawitz premiered his debut film Jewboy (SFF 2005) at Cannes in Un Certain Regard. He also co-directed the Australian series The Kettering Incident, which received the AACTA Best Telefeature or Mini Series Award in 2016.
The Sydney Film Prize will be awarded at the Closing Night Ceremony on June 16, 2024 at the State Theatre.
