26 March 2009

Experimental Award

The Jeremy Hynes Award honours Queensland filmmaker.

Filmmaker, Aaron Burton has taken out the first Jeremy Hynes Award for his depiction of the ‘socially marginalised’.

The 25-year-old filmmaker was praised for his unique films, utilising low-budget documentary-style storytelling with both bideo footage and still photography “and interweaving the personal and the political”.

IMA Director Robert Leonard says: “The panel was hugely impressed by Burton's short films, particularly two keenly-observed portraits of socially marginal characters from 2006... He's already produced a remarkable and substantial body of work. We expect great things.”

Leonard notes two specific and powerful examples of Burton’s gift capturing the stories of the socially marginalised in Princess of Paradise – the story of a cross-dresser who defiantly wears a pink bikini on beaches in Surfers Paradise despite being threatened with prosecution – and The Point – the story of an aboriginal man “railing against Captain Cook’s presumption in claiming the country”.

The Jeremy Hynes Award pays tribute to Brisbane artist Jeremy Hynes, who was tragically killed in an accident in 2006. A bequest was made in his honour last year to the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) to create a biannual cash award for an experimental Brisbane artist.

Institute of Modern Art
ima.org.au

'The Point'