MIFF Shorts Awards

PRESENTED BY

MIFF hosts one of the most highly regarded short-film competitions in both the Asia Pacific region and the Southern Hemisphere. You can read the competition’s regulations here.

The winners were announced at a ceremony at Shorts Awards venue partner ACMI on Saturday 17 August with $50,000AUD in prize money awarded across multiple categories. They were selected from the main 2024 MIFF Shorts program, which this year boasts over 60 works of short-form content selected from some 35 countries and carefully curated into nine packaged presentations across animation, experimental, fiction and documentary.

The 2024 Shorts Awards Jury comprises award-winning screenwriter, director and former TV journalist Beck Cole; COO at Mushroom Studios, entertainment lawyer and producer Bethany Jones; and artist, film director, performance-maker, writer and Artistic Director of Back to Back Theatre Bruce Gladwin.

City of Melbourne Grand Prix for Best Short Film

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Director: Nebojša Slijepčević
Producers: Katarina Prpić, Danijel Pek, Katya Trichkova, Noëlle Lévénez, Boštjan Virc

Jury Statement:
Unanimously loved by our judging panel for its honed subject and refined execution, Nebojša Slijepčević’s The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is filmmaking par excellence. Tension mounts as a ‘cleansing of Otherness’ becomes an intervention in the lives of strangers on a sleepy train journey. Who holds the titular role in this tightly crafted story about resistance is revealed through a masterclass of writing, performance, cinematography, direction and sound design. With economy and intelligence, The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent leaves its audience with the serious and real-world consequence of choosing speaking over silence.

VicScreen Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film

The Meaningless Daydreams of Augie & Celeste

Director: Pernell Marsden
Producer: Sophie Booth

Jury Statement:
The Meaningless Daydreams of Augie & Celeste invites its audience into the playful world of two young girls living on a farm in regional Australia. When one of the little girls, Augie, is challenged to kiss a handsome scarecrow, she soon discovers that she has bitten off more than she can chew and the girls’ friendship is quickly challenged. The performances delivered by the young cast are impressive, and the short film manages to deliver a powerful message about the expectations placed on girls and young women in Australian society today while also offering some hope for change. The cinematography and production design complement the dramatic narrative beautifully and the editing was also exceptional.

Award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker

Dylan Ferenc Nyerges

Film: Bőr (Skin)

Jury Statement:
In the Gothic short film Bőr (Skin), a Hungarian mother struggles to adapt to her new life in 1950s Australia as intense homesickness drives her further away from her young son and husband. The cast delivers powerful and understated performances in this beautifully realised film from director Dylan Ferenc Nyerges, while the production and sound design add a terrifying sense of isolation, loneliness and hopelessness.

Award for Best Fiction Short Film

The Masterpiece

Director: Àlex Lora Cercós
Producers: Lluis Quilez, Josemari Martínez, Néstor López, Àlex Lora Cercós

Jury Statement:
Àlex Lora Cercós’s black comedy The Masterpiece tackles themes of social class and power in ways reminiscent of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. This clever, thrilling and engaging film uses an innocent interaction to leave the audience unbalanced and wondering who to trust at each turn. Cercós expertly uses tension to grip and subvert audiences’ expectations and reflect our own values back to us. The Masterpiece is a standout film for its understanding of the short-film form and is a pure example of what David Mamet describes as the “three uses of the knife” in storytelling. An exceptional short film.

Award for Best Documentary Short Film

Ever Since, I Have Been Flying

Director & Producer: Aylin Gökmen

Jury Statement:
In Aylin Gökmen’s Ever Since, I Have Been Flying, Kurdish man Vakif Çağın bravely reveals his deeply personal memories and emotions in a complex exploration of memory and identity as a form of resistance. Under Gökmen’s hand, the story and the aesthetics deftly move between trauma and tenderness to sensitively and directly allow Çağın to provide audiences with a deeper understanding of the ongoing effects on those under the constant threat of persecution and erasure of their identity and culture.

Award for Best Animation Short Film

Father’s Letters

Director: Alexey Evstigneev
Producers: Igor Courtecuisse, Clémence Crépin Neel, Yanna Buryak

Jury Statement:
Alexey Evstigneev’s Father’s Letters is an emotional and poetic exploration of resilience. The beautiful and textual visual palette enhances the poetic metaphor by using cut paper, pressed flowers, paint, crayons and pencil in stop motion. Father’s Letters powerfully combines documentary and animation to cultivate an incredibly well-constructed and moving film. It’s a timely reminder of the impacts of war and how small acts of resilience have a legacy.

Award for Best Experimental Short Film

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke

Director & Producer: Tomonari Nishikawa

Jury Statement:
A choreography of propulsion, combustion, illumination and gravity creates polyrhythms of sequential firework explosions. This graphic pattern-making is both a harmonic cavalcade and documentation of celestial celebration. Layered and repetitive, the spectacle could be a distortion or corruption of memory. The pulsating luminescence is a highlight package of festival good times that morphs into the abstract, temporal and timeless. Excellently montaged to a musical score of analog tones and pulses, Tomonari Nishikawa’s film turns a barrage of cannon fire into endless openings and energetic but always fading life force.

The MIFF Shorts Awards are Academy Awards® accredited. The 2023 winners of the Best Short Film, Best Australian Short Film, Best Documentary Short Film and Best Animation Short Film awards are eligible to submit their films for the 96th Academy Awards® in 2024.

The MIFF Shorts program is also BAFTA Qualifying. Any British film programmed for the 2023 festival is subsequently eligible for entry in the British Short Film and British Short Animation categories of the 2024 BAFTA Film Awards. (More information here.)

See previous winners: