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The 69th Sydney Film Festival tonight awarded the Documentary Australia Award to Keep Stepping by Australian filmmaker Luke Cornish.
Luke Cornish said, “I would like to say thank you to Sydney Film Festival because very much like the participants of this film, it’s very hard to have your artistry and creative dreams showcased anywhere. This is what has helped them and myself be seen. Thank you particularly to Jenny Neighbour who selected the film in the first place and and for helping me carry on in the middle of the whole process when I wasn’t sure if it would ever get out to anyone.”
“I would also like to thank Philip Busfield, the producer, I would like to thank Justin Donoghue, my partner, and I’d like to thank my mum, and I would like to thank Daniella from Screen Australia for the development funding and to all the amazing dancers that let me into their world,” he said.
The Jury comprising of Documentary Australia CEO Mitzi Goldman, filmmaker Tosca Looby (Strong Female Lead, SFF 2021), and filmmaker Kamar Ahmad Simon (Day After…, SFF 2022) in a joint statement said:  
Tonight’s winner is a film that takes us deep into a subculture to reveal far more than appears on the surface. The filmmaker has established remarkable rapport and trust, challenging our preconceptions and delivering a story that touched and transported us far into another world. The community showcased in the film have much to tell us about family, identity, belonging, hard work, testing our limits, love and acceptance. The film is sensitively crafted, beautifully shot and edited and its characters mesmerising. This is a generation that have something to say and are asking us to listen.  It is far more than a film about the dynamic subculture of street dance.”
2022 marks the sixth year the prize has been supported by the Foundation.
Previous winners are: I’m Wanita (2021), Descent (2020), She Who Must Be Obeyed Loved (2019), Ghosthunter (2018), The Pink House (2017), In the Shadow of the Hill (2016); Only the Dead (2015); 35 Letters (2014); Buckskin (2013); Killing Anna (2012); Life in Movement (2011); and The Snowman (2010). In 2009 the inaugural prize was shared between Contact and A Good Man, and each film received a $10,000 cash prize.
The nine finalists for the 2022 Documentary Australia Award are listed HERE
ALL AWARD WINNERS:
Official Competition/Sydney Film Prize winner:
Close
Sustainable Future Award winner:
Delikado
Deutsche Bank Fellowship for First Nations Film Creatives recipient:
Kylie Bracknell
Sydney-UNSECO City of Film Award:
Caitlin Yeo
Dendy Short Film Awards:

  • AFTRS Craft Award – Donkey
  • Yoram Gross Animation Award – Donkey
  • Dendy Live Action Short Award – The Moths Will Eat Them Up
  • Rouben Mamoulian Award for Best Director – The Moths Will Eat Them Up