Press release from Nix Co
Of the 16 Madman titles that premiered at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival, Madman is delighted to announce that two of those films earned the coveted Showtime Audience Award prizes with THE COVE snaring both Best Documentary at the State Theatre and Satellite venues.
Oliver Hirschbiegel’s FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN won the Audience Award for Best Fiction at the State Theatre. The very important public support for these films perfectly compliments Madman’s most successful title at the festival this year, BRONSON, which won the official competition and was announced last Sunday, 14 June.
Special mention should also go to IN THE LOOP, which rated amongst the Best Top 5 Fiction Feature Films at a Satellite Venue, and WAKE IN FRIGHT, which scored very highly amongst festival goers but is precluded from voting because it is a retrospective title.
THE COVE, a documentary that traces an illicit Japanese Dolphin cull, is an extraordinary story that the film-makers went to great lengths to tell and it’s this passion that sets this documentary apart. The film has been voted audience favourite at other film festivals including HOT DOCS CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL and SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL.
Madman is delighted to be releasing this film later in the year with Gil Scrine as theatrical distributor.
FIVE MINUTES OF HEAVEN and IN THE LOOP will both release nationally early 2010. BRONSON will open late 2009 and WAKE IN FRIGHT opens on the 25th June.
James Hewison, Theatrical Distribution Manager at Madman Cinema, said “it is wonderful to get such support from the audience at the Sydney Film Festival and when they embrace these films it certainly gives them the validity we always hope to find in our titles. It shows that great storytelling can still be put at a higher value than star power and that is why these films resonate with an audience, because they touch a nerve.”