CANBERRA—An Aboriginal fable of forbidden family lust, sorcery, kidnap and revenge dominated Australia's annual film awards, taking out best picture, despite being shot in a native language few understand.
Ten Canoes, Australia's first native-language feature film, picked up six Australian Film Institute awards on Thursday night—best picture, best original screenplay, best cinematography, best direction, best editing and best sound.
The film won a special jury prize at the Cannes International Film festival in May and will compete as Australia's entry for best foreign-language film at next year's Academy Awards.
Ten Canoes tells the tale of Dayindi, mostly told in Ganalbingu language, who covets one of the wives of his older brother. As a cautionary warning he is told a story from the tribe's mythic past about love, warfare and revenge gone wrong.
Filmed around the Arafura Swamp and Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory, "Ten Canoes" stars Jamie Gulpilil, the son of veteran Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, and is set 200 years before the arrival of white people.
The elder Gulpilil, who starred in Crocodile Dundee, Walkabout and 2002's The Tracker, narrates the story.
The tale, which cost just over A$2 million ($1.5 million), was co-directed by Rolf de Heer and Aborigine Peter Djigirr.
"This white fella came to our land and we sat down together, and we talked about making our film," Djigirr said in accepting best picture award for a film which stars mostly unknowns from the Ramingining township. "We are very, very proud of that film."
The entire cast came from the swamp region and made the traditional artefacts needed for the film, including bark canoes, spears and other weaponry and the dwellings. The local people also had editorial control over much of the script and casting.
De Heer won an award for unorthodox approaches to film-making."It was an extraordinarily difficult film to make," he told the awards crowd after interpreting for Djigirr.
In other awards, unknown Australian actor Shane Jacobson beat Heath Ledger for best actor for his role in a low-budget comedy called Kenny, which tells the tale of a philosophical portable toilet contractor. Ledger won the international award for best actor for Brokeback Mountain.
Young Australian actor Emily Barclay, 21, won best actress for Suburban Mayhem, while Rachel Griffith won the international best actress award.
($1 = A$1.27)
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