British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is an independent charity that supports and promotes the art forms of the moving image in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awards ceremonies, BAFTA has an international programme of learning events and initiatives offering access to talent through workshops, scholarships and mentoring schemes in the United Kingdom and the United States. BAFTA started out as the British Film Academy, was founded in 1947 by a group of directors David Lean, Alexander Korda, Roger Manvell, Laurence Olivier, Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, Michael Balcon, Carol Reed, other major figures of the British film industry. David Lean was the founding chairman of the academy; the first Film Awards ceremony took place in May 1949 and honouring the films The Best Years of Our Lives, Odd Man Out and The World Is Rich. The Guild of Television Producers and Directors was set up in 1953 with the first awards ceremony in October 1954, in 1958 merged with the British Film Academy to form the Society of Film and Television Arts, whose inaugural meeting was held at Buckingham Palace and presided over by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
In 1976, Queen Elizabeth, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Princess Royal and The Earl Mountbatten of Burma opened the organisation's headquarters at 195 Piccadilly, in March the society became the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. BAFTA is an independent charity with a mission to "support and promote the art forms of the moving image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners and benefiting the public", it is a membership organisation comprising 7,500 individuals worldwide who are creatives and professionals working in and making a contribution to the film and games industries in the UK. In 2005, it placed an overall cap on worldwide voting membership "which now stands at 6,500". BAFTA does not receive any funding from the government: it relies on income from membership subscriptions, individual donations, trusts and corporate partnerships to support its ongoing outreach work. BAFTA has offices in Scotland and Wales in the UK, in Los Angeles and New York in the United States and runs events in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Amanda Berry OBE has been chief executive of the organisation since December 2000. In addition to its high-profile awards ceremonies, BAFTA manages a year-round programme of educational events and initiatives including film screenings and Q&As, tribute evenings, interviews and debates with major industry figures. With over 250 events a year, BAFTA's stated aim is to inspire and inform the next generation of talent by providing a platform for some of the world's most talented practitioners to pass on their knowledge and experience. Many of these events are free to watch online via its official channel on YouTube. BAFTA runs a number of scholarship programmes across US and Asia. Launched in 2012, the UK programme enables talented British citizens who are in need of financial support to take an industry-recognised course in film, television or games in the UK; each BAFTA Scholar receives up to £12,000 towards their annual course fees, mentoring support from a BAFTA member and free access to BAFTA events around the UK.
Since 2013, three students every year have received one of the Prince William Scholarships in Film and Games, supported by BAFTA and Warner Bros. These scholarships are awarded in the name of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge in his role as president of BAFTA. In the US, BAFTA Los Angeles offers financial support and mentorship to British graduate students studying in the US, as well as scholarships to provide financial aid to local LA students from the inner city. BAFTA New York's Media Studies Scholarship Program, set up in 2012, supports students pursuing media studies at undergraduate and graduate level institutions within the New York City area and includes financial aid and mentoring opportunities. Since 2015, BAFTA has been offering scholarships for British citizens to study in China, vice versa. BAFTA presents awards for film and games, including children's entertainment, at a number of annual ceremonies across the UK and in Los Angeles, USA; the BAFTA award trophy is a mask, designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe.
When the Guild merged with the British Film Academy to become the Society of Film and Television Arts the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the first'BAFTA award' was presented to Sir Charles Chaplin on his Academy Fellowship that year. Today's BAFTA award – including the bronze mask and marble base – weighs 3.7 kg and measures 27 cm x 14 cm x 8 cm. In 2017, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts introduced new entry rules for British Films Only starting from 2018 season. BAFTA's annual film awards ceremony is known as the British Academy Film Awards, or "the BAFTAs", reward the best work of any nationality seen on British cinema screens during the preceding year. In 1949 the British Film Academy, as it was known, presented the first awards for films made in 1947 and 1948. Since 2008 the ceremony has been held at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, it had been held in the Odeon cinema on Leicester Square since 2000. Since 2017, the BAFTA ceremony has been held at the Royal Albert Hall.
The ceremony had been performed during April or May of each year, but since 2002 it has been held in February to precede the academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Academy Awards, or Oscars. In order for a film to be considered for a BAFTA nomination its first public exhibition must be displayed in a cinema and it must have a
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog is a German film director, author and opera director. Herzog is a figure of the New German Cinema, his films feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature. Werner Herzog made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since he has produced and directed more than sixty feature- and documentary films, such as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Lessons of Darkness, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, My Best Fiend, Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he has published more than a dozen books of prose, directed as many operas. French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important film director alive." American film critic Roger Ebert said that Herzog "has never created a single film, compromised, made for pragmatic reasons, or uninteresting. His failures are spectacular." He was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2009.
Herzog was born Werner Stipetić in Munich, to Elizabeth Stipetić, an Austrian of Croatian descent, Dietrich Herzog, German. When Werner was two weeks old, his mother took refuge in the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang, after the house next to theirs was destroyed during a bombing raid in World War II. In Sachrang, Herzog grew up without a flushing toilet, or a telephone, he never saw films, did not know of the existence of cinema until a traveling projectionist came by the one-room schoolhouse in Sachrang. When Herzog was 12, he and his family moved back to Munich, his father had abandoned the family early in his youth. Werner adopted his father's surname Herzog, which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker; the same year, Herzog was told to sing in front of his class at school, he adamantly refused, was expelled. Until he was age eighteen, Herzog listened to no music, sang no songs, studied no instruments, he said that he would give ten years from his life to be able to play the cello.
At an early age, he experienced a dramatic phase in which he converted to Catholicism, which only lasted a few years. He started to embark on some of them on foot. Around this time, he knew he would be a filmmaker, learned the basics from a few pages in an encyclopedia which provided him with "everything I needed to get myself started" as a filmmaker—that, the 35 mm camera he stole from the Munich Film School. In the commentary for Aguirre, the Wrath of God, "I don't consider it theft, it was just a necessity. I had some sort of natural right for a camera, a tool to work with", he won a scholarship to Duquesne University and lasted only a few days, but lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During his last years of high school, no production company was willing to take on his projects, so Herzog worked night shifts as a welder in a steel factory to earn the funds for his first featurettes. After graduating from high school, he was intrigued by the Congo after its independence, but only reached the south of the Sudan where he fell ill.
While making films, he had a brief stint at Munich University, where he studied history and literature. He earned money by participating in preproduction of a documentary for NASA with KQED. Summoned to the immigration office because of a violation of his visa status, he chose to flee to Mexico. Before leaving school, he bought a house in the UK, in what was the Moss Side area of Manchester. There he learned to speak English. In 1962, he made Herakles. In school there was an emphasis on Greek, in which he continues to read to this day. In 1971, while Herzog was location scouting for Aguirre, the Wrath of God in Peru, he narrowly avoided taking LANSA Flight 508. Herzog's reservation was cancelled due to a last-minute change in itinerary; the plane was struck by lightning and disintegrated, but one survivor, Juliane Koepcke, lived after a free fall. Long haunted by the event, nearly 30 years he made a documentary film, Wings of Hope, which explored the story of the sole survivor. Herzog, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff, led the beginning of the West German cinema movement.
The West German cinema movement consisted of documentarians that filmed on low budgets and were influenced by the French New Wave of cinema. Besides using professional actors—German and otherwise—Herzog is known for using people from the locality in which he is shooting. In his documentaries, he uses locals to benefit what he calls "ecstatic truth", he uses footage of the non-actors both playing roles and being themselves. Herzog and his films won many awards, his first major award was the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury for his first feature film Signs of Life. Most notably, Herzog won the best director award for Fitzcarraldo at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. In 1975, his movie The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Festival. Other films directed by Herzog nominated for Golden Palm are: Woyzeck and Where the Green Ants Dream, his films have been nominated at many other important festivals around the world: César Awards, Emmy Awards, European Film Awards and Venice Film Festival (Screa
Street Musique
Street Musique is an animated short film by Ryan Larkin produced by the National Film Board of Canada and released in 1972. It is a line animation of "music as performance", in which actions of the film's characters are choreographed to the music of street musicians. Soon after returning from the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970, for which his animated short film Walking had been nominated, Larkin was loaned by the NFB to a Vancouver art school, where he stayed for eight months conducting animation workshops, he would travel to each student's studio to direct them, one of, a group of street musicians. These street musicians were the origin of the idea for the film, as Larkin had stated that "they would make a great focal point for my abstract images"; the film consists of five or six vaguely defined segments whose animation matches the pace of the music to which it is set. It begins with a photograph of a musician, replaced by a line drawing of that photograph. A transition leads to images of a man's body transforming into abstract improvisational forms using line shading and watercolours.
The figures undergo a continuous metamorphosis throughout the film. Chris Robinson stated that the film's awkward ending is indicative of Larkin's creative hesitancy, as the last image is a figure waiting for music. Larkin said that he "ran out of ideas" and "didn't know how to end the film". Street Musique won the Grand Prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1973, which included a cash prize of A$2,500 from the Government of Victoria in Australia; the film received the Jury's First Prize at the Berlin Film Festival of Animated Films. Larkin was fond of the Melbourne International Film Festival award because Street Musique "was a ten minute film up against all kinds of complicated feature films", he used the prize money to support young artists in Montreal, to whom he rented his nine-room apartment for C$100. In 2000, after having lived on the streets in Montreal and spending his nights at the Old Brewery Mission, Larkin met Chris Robinson. During a discussion, Larkin told Robinson that after creating Street Musique, he was bereft of ideas for new projects.
Robinson invited Larkin to be a member of the selection committee for the Ottawa International Animation Festival. The other three members were Chris Landreth, Pjotr Sapegin, Andrei Svislotksi, none of whom were aware of Larkin's identity. After reviewing selections, they screened each other's films. Larkin was last, showing Walking, Street Musique, Syrinx. Landreth was inspired to create a documentary film about Larkin's life, which became Ryan; the animated documentary incorporated in their entirety Street Musique and Walking. Larkin's character in Ryan is animated to dance with characters from Street Musique. Street Musique at the National Film Board of Canada
South Korea
South Korea the Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and lying to the east of the Asian mainland. The name Korea is derived from Goguryeo, one of the great powers in East Asia during its time, ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, parts of the Russian Far East and Inner Mongolia, under Gwanggaeto the Great. South Korea has a predominantly mountainous terrain, it comprises an estimated 51.4 million residents distributed over 100,363 km2. Its capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of around 10 million. Archaeology indicates that the Korean Peninsula was inhabited by early humans starting from the Lower Paleolithic period; the history of Korea begins with the foundation of Gojoseon in 2333 BCE by the mythic king Dangun, but no archaeological evidence and writing was found from this period. The Gija Joseon was purportedly founded in 11th century BCE, its existence and role has been controversial in the modern era; the written historical record on Gojoseon was first mentioned in Chinese records in the early 7th century BCE.
Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under Unified Silla in CE 668, Korea was subsequently ruled by the Goryeo dynasty and the Joseon dynasty. It was annexed by the Empire of Japan in 1910. At the end of World War II, Korea was divided into Soviet and U. S. zones of occupations. A separate election was held in the U. S. zone in 1948 which led to the creation of the Republic of Korea, while the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the Soviet zone. The United Nations at the time passed a resolution declaring the ROK to be the only lawful government in Korea; the Korean War began in June 1950. The war lasted three years and involved the U. S. China, the Soviet Union and several other nations; the border between the two nations remains the most fortified in the world. Under long-time military leader Park Chung-hee, the South Korean economy grew and the country was transformed into a G-20 major economy. Military rule ended in 1987, the country is now a presidential republic consisting of 17 administrative divisions.
South Korea is a developed country and a high-income economy, with a "very high" Human Development Index, ranking 22nd in the world. The country is considered a regional power and is the world's 11th largest economy by nominal GDP and the 12th largest by PPP as of 2010. South Korea is a global leader in the industrial and technological sectors, being the world's 5th largest exporter and 8th largest importer, its export-driven economy focuses production on electronics, ships, machinery and robotics. South Korea is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, the United Nations, Uniting for Consensus, G20, the WTO and OECD and is a founding member of APEC and the East Asia Summit; the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name; the 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, thus inherited its name, pronounced by the visiting Persian merchants as "Korea". The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.
Despite the coexistence of the spellings Corea and Korea in 19th century publications, some Koreans believe that Imperial Japan, around the time of the Japanese occupation, intentionally standardised the spelling on Korea, making Japan appear first alphabetically. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the official name for the entire territory, though it was not universally accepted; the new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon. In 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk; the name Daehan, which means "Great Han" derives from Samhan, referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula. However, the name Joseon was still used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted. There were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the legal English name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, the informal term South Korea was coined, becoming common in the Western world. While South Koreans use Han to refer to the entire country, North Koreans and ethnic Koreans living in China and Japan use the term Joseon as the name of the country; the Korean name "Daehan Minguk" is sometimes used by South Koreans as a metonym to refer to the Korean ethnicity as a whole, rather than just the South Korean state. The history of Korea begins with the founding of Joseon in 2333 BCE by Dangun, according to Korea's foundation mythology. Gojoseon expanded until it controlled parts of Manchuria. Gija Joseon was purportedly founded in the 12th century BC, but its existence and role have been controversial in the modern era. In 108 BCE, the Han dynasty defeated Wiman Joseon and installed four commanderies in the n
Ryan Larkin
Ryan Larkin was a Canadian animator and sculptor who rose to fame with the psychedelic Oscar-nominated short Walking and the acclaimed Street Musique. He was the subject of the Oscar-winning film Ryan. Larkin had idolized his older brother, whom he described as "cool". In 1958, he and his brother went boating. Larkin was unable to save him because he had never learned to swim, stated that his brother's death scarred him. Larkin attended the Art School of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts where he studied under Arthur Lismer before starting to work at the National Film Board of Canada in 1962. Larkin was bisexual, having had sexual and romantic relationships with both women and men during his lifetime. At the National Film Board of Canada, Larkin learned animation techniques from the ground-breaking and award-winning animator Norman McLaren, he made two acclaimed short animated films and Cityscape, before going on to create Walking. Walking was nominated for an Academy Award in 1970 in the category Best Short Subject, but lost to It's Tough to Be a Bird by director Ward Kimball.
Syrinx won many international awards. He went on to direct the award-winning short Street Musique, which premiered in 1972 and would be the last of his works, finished during his lifetime, he contributed art work and animation effects to NFB films including the 1974 feature Running Time, directed by Mort Ransen, in which Larkin played three bit parts. In 1975, the NFB commissioned Larkin to create a mural for the entrance foyer at its Montreal headquarters, he delivered a piece featuring an adolescent boy with an erection, which the NFB removed from viewing. Larkin left the NFB in 1978. In years Larkin was plagued by a downward spiral of drug abuse and homelessness. By this time estranged from his parents, he had developed a routine of spending his nights at the Old Brewery Mission, his days panhandling at Schwartz's, eating at Mondo Frites, drinking beer at the Copacabana bar, or reading a book in the lounge at Welch's used book store. Towards the end of his life, he found himself back in the limelight when a 14-minute computer-animated documentary on his life, Ryan, by Canadian animator Chris Landreth, won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film and screened to acclaim at film festivals throughout the world.
Alter Egos, directed by Laurence Green, is a documentary about the making of Ryan that includes interviews with both Larkin and Chris Landreth as well as with various people who knew Larkin at the peak of his own success. As of 2002, Larkin had been working with composer Laurie Gordon of the band Chiwawa on a new animated film entitled Spare Change, his first auteur film since working at the NFB. Together they founded Spare Change Productions and sought funding for the film through Gordon's production company MusiVision, they received grants from Bravo! FACT, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and SODEC but were still short of financing. MusiVision and the National Film Board of Canada went into co-production only after Larkin's death. Spare Change premiered at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema on October 9, 2008. Spare Change features three CHIWAWA tunes for which Larkin created storyboards and animation, including Do It For Me from the 2005 release Bright.
A new CHIWAWA album Bus Stop Chinese Buffet will include tracks from Spare Change including Overcast Skies whose lyrics were penned by Larkin, part of a group of Larkin poems - Beat Poems For Grandkids. MusiVision produced the documentary film Ryan's Renaissance for CTV Television about Ryan's final years, his return to creating art, Spare Change, it was produced by Nicola Zavaglia. Larkin, who had panhandled outside Montreal Schwartz's deli, appeared in a documentary on the famous restaurant, Chez Schwartz, directed by Garry Beitel In December 2006, Larkin created three five-second bumpers for MTV in Canada, a preview to Spare Change; each frame was hand-drawn. It was the first professional work. Larkin said that he had given up some bad habits, including drinking, in order to better focus on his animating career. Larkin died in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec on February 14, 2007 from lung cancer which had spread to his brain. History of Canadian animation Ryan Larkin on IMDb Ryan Larkin at the NFB Animation World Magazine - Last Exit on St. Laurent Street NFB Web page for the animated short Ryan NFB Web page for the documentary Alter Egos Film Reference Library biography
West Germany
West Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, referred to by historians as the Bonn Republic, was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1949 to 1990, when the western portion of Germany was part of the Western bloc during the Cold War. It was created during the Allied occupation of Germany in 1949 after World War II, established from eleven states formed in the three Allied zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, its capital was the city of Bonn. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Eastern blocs. Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin; the Federal Republic of Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, considering itself to be the democratically reorganised continuation of the 1871–1945 German Empire. It took the line. Though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not fair. From the West German perspective, the GDR was therefore illegitimate.
Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. In addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. While not part of the Federal Republic of Germany, as Berlin was under the control of the Allied Control Council, West Berlin politically-aligned itself with West Germany and was represented in its federal institutions; the foundation for the influential position held by Germany today was laid during the Wirtschaftswunder of the 1950s when West Germany rose from the enormous destruction wrought by World War II to become the world's third-largest economy. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for a full alignment with NATO rather than neutrality, he not only secured a membership in NATO but was a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union. When the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well.
Following the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, there was a rapid move towards German reunification. East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990, its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin, which ended its special status and formed an additional Land. They formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany; the reunion did not result in a brand-new country. The expanded Federal Republic retained West Germany's political culture and continued its existing memberships in international organisations, as well as its Western foreign policy alignment and affiliation to Western alliances like UN, NATO, OECD and the European Union; the official name of West Germany, adopted in 1949 and unchanged since is Bundesrepublik Deutschland. In East Germany, the terms Westdeutschland or westdeutsche Bundesrepublik were preferred during the 1950s and 1960s.
This changed once under its 1968 constitution, when the idea of a single German nation was abandoned by East Germany, as a result West Germans and West Berliners were considered foreigners. In the early 1970s, starting in the East German Neues Deutschland, the initialism "BRD" for the "Federal Republic of Germany" began to prevail in East German usage. In 1973, official East German sources adopted it as a standard expression and other Eastern Bloc nations soon followed suit. In reaction to this move, in 1965 the West German Federal Minister of All-German Affairs Erich Mende issued the Directives for the appellation of Germany, recommending avoiding the initialism. On 31 May 1974, the heads of West German federal and state governments recommended always using the full name in official publications. From on West German sources avoided the abbreviated form, with the exception of left-leaning organizations which embraced it. In November 1979 the federal government informed the Bundestag that the West German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF had agreed to refuse to use the initialism.
The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code of West Germany was "DE", which has remained the country code of Germany after reunification. ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 are the most used country codes, the "DE" code is notably used as country identifier extending the postal code and as the Internet's country code top-level domain.de. Accordingly the less used ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code of West Germany was "DEU", which has remained the country code of reunified Germany; the now deleted codes for East Germany, on the other hand, was "DD" in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and "DDR" in ISO 3166-1 alpha-3. The colloquial term "West Germany" or its equivalent was used in many languages. "Westdeutschland" was a widespread colloquial form used in German-speaking countries without political overtones. On 4–11 February 1945 leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union held the Yalta Conference where future arrangements as regards post-war Europe and strategy against Japan in the Pacific were negotiated.
The conference agreed that post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones: a French Zone in the far west.
Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts
The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts is a professional organisation of film and television practitioners in Australia. The Academy's aim is "to identify, award and celebrate Australia's greatest achievements in film and television."It was established in August 2011 with the backing of the Australian Film Institute to act as its industry engagement arm and to administer the AACTA Awards which rewards achievements in Australian feature film, television and short films. The Academy is composed of 15 Chapters, each of which represents different screen artists including actors, directors and writers, it is overseen by the Academy's president and the Honorary Council. Australian actor Geoffrey Rush is the inaugural President and hosted the inaugural AACTA Awards in January 2012; the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, is a not for profit, membership based, organisation whose aim is "to identify, award and celebrate Australia's greatest achievements in film and television."
The Academy is a subsidiary of the Australian Film Institute, a non-profit organisation, established in 1958 to develop an active film culture in Australia and to foster engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry. The AFI was responsible for administering the Australian Film Institute Awards, which until 2011 rewarded Australian practitioners in feature film, television and short film screen crafts; the Academy receives funding by the AFI, Australian state and federal governments. In June 2011, the AFI proposed the establishment of an "Australian Academy"; the objectives for the proposed academy was to raise the profile of Australian film and television in Australia and abroad, to change the way it rewards talent by mimicking the methods used in foreign film organisations, such as Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The voting system would change through the establishment of an "Honorary Council", which will govern fifteen chapters composed of professionals from industry guilds and organisations including actors, directors and screenwriters.
It was stated that the Academy would not replace the AFI and past winners of the AFI Awards would " constitute the founding heritage of an ‘Australian Academy.’" When the announcement of the proposal was made, the AFI began the consultation phase where members of the public and screen industry gave their feedback on the proposed changes throughout June, 2011. Of the announcement Damian Trewhella, CEO of the AFI said, "We thought a better way to engage with the industry would be to try and improve our professional membership structure It's quite a big improvement on the way the AFI does things."By 20 July, weeks after the consultation period ended, the AFI announced that it would go ahead with the proposed changes and the Australian Academy. When asked about the timing of the announcement Trewhella stated that, "Based on the overwhelming industry support we have received, we are now confident that we are moving in the right direction, therefore that we can move briskly to establish the initial phase of the Academy."
On 18 August 2011, the AFI announced, in a special event at the Sydney Opera House, that the academy would be called the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and the inaugural awards ceremony would be renamed the AACTA Awards, but serve as a continuum to the annual AFI Awards. During the event it was made known that the president of the inaugural awards would be Geoffrey Rush. On the night a new gold statuette was revealed, created by Australian sculptor Ron Gomboc, which depicts "a human silhouette based on the shape of the Southern Cross constellation." The Academy, which has between 1,500 and 2,000 members, comprises fifteen Chapters, with each representing a different area of speciality in feature film, television and short film. It is overseen by the Honorary Council; the role of the Honorary Council is to determine policies and strategies for the way the Academy rewards practitioners. The Chapters are as follows: Geoffrey Rush The Festival of Film, held in conjunction with the Australian Film Institute, showcases the films in competition for the AACTA Awards, with the inaugural festival held in Sydney and Melbourne from October to November in 2011.
The festival marks the beginning of the Australian film awards season, members of the Academy can commence voting for films in all categories, while members of the Institute vote for the Best Short Animation, Best Short Fiction Film and Members' Choice Award only. The AACTA Awards replaced the previous Australian Film Institute Awards, but serve as a continuum to past ceremonies; the awards were first instituted by the Australian Film Institute in 1958 as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, until 1972. Before 1969, awards were presented as a prize to non-feature films due to a lack of feature films produced in Australia. By 1976 competitive film awards were established and in 1987, awards for television was introduced; the awards were held at the end of each year in Melbourne but, prior to the announcement of the Academy, the AFI announced that it would move the awards to January 2012 at the Sydney Opera House, in order to align them with the international film awards season.
The awards are held over two events: the AACTA Awards Luncheon, a black tie event where accolades are handed out for non-feature and short films, film production, non-drama related television programs and the Raymond Longford Award
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