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Northern Film School drama feature shortlisted for three prestigious Australian film awards
Drama feature ‘Disclosure’ has been shortlisted for the Australian Academy Award for Best Indie Film, the ATOM Award for Best Fiction Feature and the Australian Director’s Guild Award for Best Direction in a Feature Film.
‘Disclosure’ is a collaboration between students and academics from the Northern Film School at Leeds Beckett University’s Leeds School of Arts, and other Higher Education institutions, including the University of Melbourne. The film tells the story of two sets of parents dealing with an allegation of child-on-child sexual abuse.
Recent BA Filmmaking graduate Brittany Gomez worked on script supervision on location in Australia and MA Filmmaking student Michael Bailey worked on the post-production. The post-production was completed at the Northern Film School, with big-screen tests conducted at Hyde Park Picture House.
Director Michael Bentham, who previously taught Directing at the Northern Film School, has been shortlisted for the Australian Director’s Guild Award for Best Direction in a Feature Film, in the Budget Under AU$1 million category.
Mark Carey, Head of Cinematography at the Northern Film School, explained that ‘Disclosure’ “attempts to address difficult societal issues and disseminates knowledge and contemporary research findings through a dramatic fiction storytelling structure”.
The film has seen significant critical acclaim. The AU Review said: “‘Disclosure’ is an unbearably tense and all-too raw drama that leans into the notion that adults can still very much act like children when provoked.”
The Canberra Times described the film as “a terrific ensemble piece, underpinned by a thoughtful nuanced script that examines the issues even-handedly. The script has often been a weak spot in Australian cinema but this is strong on every level.”
Mark Carey said: “We set ourselves a lot of challenges: to use a film set as a teaching environment, to shoot a micro-budget feature film on a very tight schedule without compromising the storytelling, and most importantly to address the often unspoken subject of child-on-child sexual abuse and the often unsupportive reactions in the immediate community.
“It has been a long journey so far, and it is far from over, but I think we’re now safe to say we have managed to hit those goals.”
The award winners will be announced in December.