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ABC dominates first AACTA Award wins

Laid, Chris Lilley and My Place were winners in the first batch of AACTA Awards handed out in Sydney.

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The ABC has dominated the first Television and Documentary wins at the inaugural AACTA Awards Luncheon, held yesterday at Sydney’s Westin Hotel.

Laid was announced as Best Comedy Series, Chris Lilley won Best Comedy Performance, My Place was Best Children’s Series and Mrs. Carey’s Concert won two Documentary awards.

The AACTA Awards are the former AFI Awards, now revamped as part of an international rebranding.

There were 4 Television awards handed out, with Foxtel’s Cloudstreet winning Best Production Design. More TV winners will be announced at the ceremony on 31st January.

At yesterday’s luncheon, nominees for the AACTA International Awards were also announced by Jacki Weaver at the G’Day USA Black Tie Gala in Los Angeles, with the segment beamed into the AACTA Awards Luncheon in Sydney.

The AACTA Awards Ceremony at the Sydney Opera House on 31 January will be broadcast on the Nine Network.

Winners:

TELEVISION
AACTA Award For Best Television Comedy Series
Laid. Liz Watts. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Performance In A Television Comedy
Chris Lilley. Angry Boys. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Children’s Television Series
My Place, Series 2. Penny Chapman. ABC3

AACTA Award For Outstanding Achievement In Television Screen Craft
Herbert Pinter – Production Design. Cloudstreet. FOXTEL – Showcase

DOCUMENTARY

AACTA Award For Best Feature Length Documentary
Mrs Carey’s Concert. Bob Connolly, Helen Panckhurst, Sophie Raymond. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Documentary Under One Hour
Jandamarra’s War. Andrew Ogilvie, Andrea Quesnelle, Eileen Torres. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Documentary Series
SAS – The Search for Warriors. Julia Redwood, Ed Punchard. SBS

AACTA Award For Best Direction In A Documentary
Mrs Carey’s Concert. Bob Connolly, Sophie Raymond. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Cinematography In A Documentary
Out Of The Ashes. David Parer ACS. ABC1

AACTA Award For Best Sound In A Documentary
murundak – songs of freedom. Emma Bortignon, Michael Letho, Peter Smith, Christopher O’Young, Simon Walbrook. SBS

16 Responses

  1. Well done to Laid. Only time I laughed was when it won this award for comedy. Television comedy is struggling in this country. And as for My Place, a dull politically correct children’s drama of more interest to parents than children. Just look at how poor its ratings were and a second series too. But Mrs Carey’s Concert was consumate filmmaking, observational documentary making at its best. The sound work was astonishing.

  3. Yes, Laid was a good show. But the problem with it winning Best Comedy is it isn’t actually a comedy. It’s a very nicely woven drama about a girl in a tough situation. But there are no jokes. And just because a show goes for half an hour doesn’t make it a comedy. Next year it should be entered into the drama category where I’m sure it will do very well.

  5. @Mike Retter – I think almost everyone would agree ‘Angry Boys’ was a disappointment (and personally, I think it’s a shame the lead actress from Laid, of that list of nominees, didn’t win the TV comedy performance ).

    But I think what most people on this thread are actually talking about is how ‘Julia’ somehow didn’t beat ‘Laid’ for the comedy award.

    Of course these things are subjective.

    But to the extent you can list the sensible reasons to favour one show over another, it’s very hard to see how ‘Laid’ could have beaten ‘Julia’.

    The latter was much better reviewed by almost every TV critic (including TV Tonight), while Laid was only middlingly reviewed; Julia was much more impactful culturally (it was pretty much The talked about comedy show of the year other than maybe ‘Hamster Wheel’); and obviously it was a much bigger hit in terms of ratings.

    So you’d have to say it’s a very strange result. (But not the first really weird one in this category – didn’t ‘Double the Fist’ beat ‘Kath and Kim’ beat a few years back?)

  8. Have to admit that At Home With Julia was a superior show to Laid, but maybe the problem is calling Laid a “comedy”? Watched as a drama about a self-obsessed woman it’s fine, but it certainly wasn’t funny.

    Incidentally, how is “AACTA” pronounced? Does it sound like “actor”? Or is it “arcta”? I can’t imagine producers, writers, etc, are that happy about winning “an actor award”.

  9. What with all the Laid bashing?! Go back to your Packed to the Rafters you philistines!

    It is a good show. Im not sure that it was my favorite comedy of the year but was certainly better than the disappointing Angry Boys.

  11. _Laid_ was brilliant. Glad it got critical recognition, if not popular.

    Pleased that _Mrs Carey’s Concert_ did so well – surprised it didn’t win the Best Sound award as well, although I haven’t seen _murundak_ so can’t compare…

  12. i haven’t watched Chris Lilley in his role on Angry Boys, but i thought that from reading just about every review, his role in this show was crap (to put it kindly), so i’m surprised that he won. He wasn’t there to accept the award (producer of the show accepeted on his behalf).

  14. This is so depressing when a show like Laid is awarded. I reckon the only decent comedy last year was twentysomething, and I know that’s subjective, but surely even speaking objectively… how on earth did this happen?

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