The winners of the 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards (AFI Awards), which cover Australian film and television, were announced in two stages: "industry" awards on Dec. 6, and the top awards on Dec. 7.
In the film categories, the top winner was Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr's Ten Canoes, the tale of the ancestors of the ancestors of the ancestors of one group of Australian aborigines. Ten Canoes won a total of six awards, including best film, best direction, and best original screenplay (de Heer).
De Heer and Djigirr's film is a tad too leisurely paced, but it does portray tribal life in — what seems like — a realistic manner. As a plus, those ancient men and women come across as neither "politically incorrect exotics" nor "noble savages" — they're just plain human beings. Filmed in the indigenous language of Ganalbingu, Ten Canoes is Australia's submission for the 2007 best foreign language film Academy Award.
Among the other winners were best actor Shane Jacobson, who plays a dim-witted toilet salesman in the popular Kenny, and best actress Emily Barclay for her performance as a teenage girl out to do away with her father in the psychological drama Suburban Mayhem.
Heath Ledger won the international award for best actor for his deeply closeted gay sheepherder in Brokeback Mountain, while Rachel Griffiths was the international best actress for her recurrent role in Six Feet Under. (The international awards cover both film and television; they're given to Australian nationals working abroad.)