NSW based Director, Lynette Wallworth’s Awavena wins International Emmy Awards and Hardball season one wins at the International Emmy Kids Awards.

Congratulations to prominent Australian filmmaker and artist Lynette Wallworth, for winning the International News and Documentary Emmy® Award for Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary for Awavena – her second Emmy following an Emmy win for Collisions in 2017. 

“In this moment when we are facing fires all over the world and ecological struggles, the story the Yawanawa felt we needed to hear was one about women’s leadership.” Lynette Wallworth

The immersive VR documentary follows Hushahu, the first female shaman appointed in the Amazon’s Yawanawa tribe; a radical decision made by the tribe’s 100-year-old shaman Tata as he neared his death. The documentary captures the reconfiguring of gender relations within the community and Hushahu’s apprenticeship through the use of cutting-edge technology.

Tata saw the compatibility VR/AR technologies had in capturing the spiritual rituals and transcendent experiences of his tribe. In a time of world crises, Wallworth’s documentary explores possibilities for transformation and alternative ways forward and celebrates indigenous cultures, the power of women and the mysteries of the natural world.

The documentary premiered at Sundance Film Festival and the World Economic Forum and screened at Venice Film Festival, Carriageworks, ACMI and Art Gallery of Western Australia. Following the Emmy win, the next planned presentation of Awavena is at BFI London in January 2021.

Awavena was funded with support from Screen NSW, Screen Australia, Ford Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Rauchenberg Foundation, Kendeda Foundation and Pritzker Foundation.

Ausfilm member Technicolor provided resources to Lynette Wallworth to create Awavena. 

Hardball Season One wins International Emmy Kids Award

The ABC’s (Australian Broadcast Corporation) comedy series Hardball Season 1 for winning the Kids: Live Action category at the International Emmy Kids Awards. The Awards are a celebration of the best children’s content from around the world with nominations spanning 10 countries: Australia, Brazil, Finland, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 

The multi award-winning series for ABC ME centres around Mikey, who moves from New Zealand to Western Sydney with his family. After discovering he has a powerful strike, together with his misfit mates, Jerry and Salwa, they are set on being the greatest handball champions Western Sydney’s ever seen.

The series win follows being awarded the prestigious Prix Jeunesse International Award for the world’s best fiction program for 7-10-year-olds as well as the Rockie Award for the Best Children & Youth Fiction Series at the Banff World Media Festival in Canada.

The comedy series is produced by Northern Pictures and commissioned by the ABC. It is financed with support from Screen NSW, Screen Australia and distributed by Australian Children’s Television Foundation. Ausfilm members SLATEVFX provided 3D modelling, animation and FX as well as 2D compositing services and Showfilm provided travel services.

Hardball season 2 is currently in production.