Alps wins Sydney Film Festival’s top prize as Killing Anna wins best Australian documentary

A Greek drama has won Sydney Film Festival’s top prize, beating out eleven other films including two Australian productions, as a film about a director’s method for dealing with a relationship break-up won him best Australian documentary.

Alps, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, has won the SFF Official Competition prize, worth $60,000.

Two Australian films were in the running; Dead Europe directed by Tony Krawitz, and Lore directed by Cate Shortland.

Rachel Ward, the festival’s jury chair said: “Following a secret club whose members are paid to act as replacements for the recently deceased, Alps melds pathos, black humour and taut menace in a film that is at once challenging and highly rewarding. A finely calibrated, absurdist study of power and identity, Alps is intelligent, uniquely emotive filmmaking from an important new voice in Greek cinema.”