What a night! We're here to announce this year’s major trophy and individual category award winners!
Before we share the names of the excellent films and uber-talented people behind them who took out some awards last night, let’s also take a moment to congratulate the entire Western Sydney film community that turned up to support the local filmmakers last night.
What a HUGE crowd we had in attendance celebrating the great work of Western Sydney filmmakers! It was amazing to see!!
Props to the cast and crew, family and friends, neighbours, colleagues, casting agents, parents, partners, interstate buddies, old university pals and everyone else who came along to watch the 2023 festival screening in our awesome 330 seat V-max theatre at Event Cinemas Liverpool.
We were thrilled seeing a full cinema at Made in the West!! Because the cinematic gems born from Western Sydney talent deserve to be seen on the big screen, by as many people as possible.
We loved seeing you all enjoying the show, chatting about your fave films during intermission and cheering for the winners at the end of the night. Thank you all for helping make the Western Sydney film scene one of the most vibrant and energising creative communities in the country.
Big thanks to Event Cinemas for supporting Western Sydney film scene as our venue sponsors and our major sponsors for their crucial support. Thanks also to our crew and volunteers, MC and hosts, camera crew, photographers, prize sponsors, and all the cinema staff that helped us bring together a wonderful night.
This year’s Official Selection included 18 short films that are gutsy, poignant, and so, so funny, our local filmmakers really bring their A-game to the screen. We say it all the time and we mean it – Western Sydney filmmakers are cutting edge!
How lucky are we to be a part of a community that is so driven by creativity, so unapologetically bold in truth-telling, so fresh on screen? There’s nowhere else in the country doing what we’re doing right now and we should all be so proud!
If you missed the festival this year (or you’d like to relive the highlights) we’ll be screening all 18 finalist films ONLINE and ON DEMAND this summer – from Friday 1 December to the end of January! You can find us here on Vimeo for Made in the West MEGA Movie Marathon and rent the full movie marathon experience for just $5 USD, which includes filmmaker interviews and highlights from the red carpet.
This year’s line-up spans all genres, from horror to science fiction, comedy to drama, plus we have heaps of music videos too – a mixed bag – just as we like it!
Hats off to our panel of judges for selecting the 2023 winners – we certainly couldn't have done it! Their scores combined determine the winners of our top awards, plus cast & crew were nominated for individual category awards based on the judges’ recommendations.
Here’s the full list of 2023 award winners:
BEST DIRECTOR – Jack Voegt for Tint
BEST SCREENPLAY - Jack Voegt for Tint
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHER – Carolina Izquierdo Duarte for Tony’s Dream
BEST EDITOR – Alex Dona for No Film Sets in Bankstown
BEST SOUND DESIGN – Martin Yeung for When You Go For A Take
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - Isabella Andronos for Too Many Ethnics
BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC SCORE - Tim Gutler for Arcade
BEST LEAD ACTOR – Jack Voegt for Tint
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Jarred Keane for Arcade
All finalists were also in the running to take part in $25,000 worth of prizes, thanks to our wonderful sponsors Still Searchin’ Productions, Western Sydney University, Event Cinemas Liverpool, Studio Plasterers Australia, Luke Walker Productions, Sydney Prop Studios, Opening Act Films, Creative Plus Business, Irierootsini Photography, Million Masters, AFTRS, Arts and Cultural Exchange, the Australian Guild of Screen Composers, the Australian Writers’ Guild and the Australian Production Design Guild.
All 18 films were in the running for our major trophies for Best in the West (for indie filmmakers), Best Student Film, and Best Music Video.
Of course, the room erupted with cheers as the final winners were announced. We want to give a HUGE shout out to:
2023 Runner-up Best Music Video:
Fields: Ashli by Ashley Dawes
Nominated for Best Director and Editor
2023 Runner-up Best Student Film:
Heather’s Diary: Monstress by Clarence Lin Thein
Nominated for Best Director and Production Design
2023 Runner-up Best in the West:
Tony’s Dream by Augusto Garcia
Nominated for Best Director, Screenplay, Cinematographer (WINNER), Editor, Production Design, Sound Design and Original Music Score
These amazing films deserve a round of applause!
And of course, you must save your most rapturous standing ovation for our 2023 WINNERS!
The award goes to….
2023 Best Music Video WINNER:
Death2Vinyl: Raj Mahal by Matthew Taylor
Nominated for Best Cinematographer and Editor
2023 Best Student Film WINNER:
Shedding by Emily Sutcliffe & Darcy Vincent
Nominated for Best Director, Cinematographer and Sound Design
2023 Best in the West WINNER:
Tint by Jack Voegt
Nominated for Best Director (WINNER), Screenplay (WINNER), Cinematographer, Editor, Production Design, Sound Design, Lead Actor (WINNER), Supporting Actor and Original Music Score
We had so many attendees commenting on the quality of films in the line-up and tensions were high as the final votes were being counted for the highly coveted Audience Choice Award. But in the end, there could only be one…
Congratulations to:
2023 Audience Choice Award WINNER:
The Crab Pamilya by Thomas Fleming
Nominated for Best Screenplay, Lead Actor and Supporting Actor
[cue applause!!]
Fun fact: For the third year in a row, a student film has won the Audience Choice Award! Last year, Hello My Name is Mother Nature by Pamela Manos and Darcy Vincent took out the honours, and in 2021 Towel Head by Sereen Omran and Raeanne Chami won the trophy; the first student film ever to do so. If this isn’t a sign of the bright future of #WesternSydneyFilm then we don’t know what is!
Congratulations again to all cast & crew involved in the making of this year’s films and thank you to everyone who joined us last night – we had a blast and we hope you enjoyed your night too.
Our in-cinema event may have wrapped, but now we have one more screening to go!
Tell your friends and family to tune in this summer to the Made in the West MEGA Movie Marathon and watch all 18 films in the Official Selection screening online – they’ll even get to vote for their favourite (in true Made in the West style) as we’ll be conducting a live audience vote for the People’s Choice Award!
Check out the 2023 Program on our website for the list of films plus links to all the filmmakers on social media so you can follow their film work and find pics from the red carpet.
Speaking of which, we’ll be sharing all the photos from the red carpet in the coming weeks and our 2023 Red Carpet Highlights Reel soon too, featuring interviews with some of this year’s finalists and their best film moments in-cinema and on the red carpet.
We love seeing Western Sydney filmmakers strut their stuff on the red carpet and we’re pleased our festival photographers and TV crew were there to capture the community in all its glory.
We’re excited to continue celebrating these amazing short films online throughout the summer!
Thanks again for a great night, everyone – YOU ROCK!!