Flinders graduates have received more than 30 nominations in the South Australia Screen Awards across virtually all categories, and dominate those for best film, best screenplay, best cinematography and best editing.

Ms Alison Wotherspoon, Screen Production Coordinator in the Department of  Screen and Media at Flinders, said the nominations recognise the outstanding talent of the individuals concerned and are also a tribute to the breadth of the education and training provided by the Flinders course.

“These awards have become increasingly professional in recent years, and are no longer just for emerging practitioners,” Ms Wotherspoon said.

“It’s very rewarding to see our graduates coming into their own as significant players in local and national filmmaking and production.”

As well as being strongly represented in the Genre awards – films by Anthony Maras, Caroline Man and David Ngo are among the five nominated for Best Film – Flinders graduates have also made a strong showing in the Craft awards, making up five of the seven cinematography nominations and four out of five in screenwriting.

“It’s especially pleasing is to see the diversity of excellence shown by our graduates across the filmmaking spectrum, including the specialty areas of sound design, production design and editing,” Ms Wotherspoon.

Several graduates have multiple nominations, with Anthony Maras picking up editing and screenplay nominations as well as Best Film and Best Drama for his film The Palace; Matthew Bate has nominations in three categories for two films, the short film Stunt Love and his feature film Shut Up Little Man; David Ngo has four nominations for his work on short films Suburban Samurai and Collision.

Screen and Media graduates from Flinders have also been nominated in the Innovation in Digital Media and the Best Music Video categories.

The Best of SASA Screenings, presented by the Media Resource Centre, will be held at the Mercury Cinema from today until April 15, with the Awards presented at a gala night on April 20.

Picture: a still from the opening sequence of The Palace.