At the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards in December, the top prize went to Hacksaw Ridge. This month the members of the Critics Circle of Australia gave their award to Goldstone.

Now the country's other critics organisation, the Australian Film Critics Association, has surprisingly come up with a third winner - Rosemary Myers'quirky coming-of-age film Girl Asleep ahead of Hacksaw Ridge, Goldstone, Down Under and Pawno.

But Goldstone won four other awards at the ceremony in Melbourne - Ivan Sen claimed best director and best cinematography, Aaron Pedersen best actor and Jacki Weaver best supporting actress.

The other big winner was the timber town drama The Daughter, with Odessa Young winning best actress, writer-director Simon Stone claiming best screenplay and Sam Neill named best supporting actor.

Best documentary went to Sherpa, with Mustang named best international film in a foreign language and Arrival best international film in English.

Australian cast join Peter Jackson film

Four Australia actors have been cast in as-yet-unnamed roles in the fantasy sci-fi movie Mortal Engines that Peter Jackson is co-producing and co-writing in New Zealand.

Sophie Cox (Home and Away), Menik Gooneratne (Neighbours, Lion), Andrew Lees (Dance Academy) and Terry Norris (The Dressmaker, Jack Irish) will join the shoot for the adaptation of a young adult novel by Philip Reeve that will get underway in spring. The cast includes at least 10 New Zealand actors including Mark Hadlow, Nathaniel Lees, Caren Pistorius and Joel Tobeck.

With a script by Jackson and his fellow Lord of the Rings and Hobbit writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, the movie is set in a steampunk London and will be directed by Christian Rivers, who won an Oscar for visual effects on King Kong.

New competition for women filmmakers

A group of protesters from Women in Film and Television made a splash at the AACTA Awards late last year - storming the red carpet and chanting "end the sausage party" to draw attention to the lack of female representation. Now the organisation is backing a new competition aimed at boosting the number of female directors, producers and screenwriters.

A woman dressed as a sausage protests on the red carpet at the AACTA Awards in Sydney late last year. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer.

Called The Big Pineapple, the competition is offering a $50,000 prize for a feature film idea that passes what WIFT calls a "four tick test". That is, women must fill four out of the five key roles of lead protagonist, writer, producer, director and cinematographer. And to encourage emerging filmmakers, the four creative leads must not have more than two feature film credits between them.

WIFT director Sophie Mathisen believes the competition, run in conjuction with the For Film's Sake festival, will be a game changer. "We want to nurture more female filmmakers through active and visible initiatives rather than endless mentorships," she says. "Right now for every one female film director in Australia, there are 15 male directors. The screen industries are not reflective of our society and we need festivals to be creating spaces for new female voices."

One-page submissions are being accepted at www.forfilmssake.org until March 31.

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