Film award for Lore

DIRECTOR Cate Shortland’s acclaimed film Lore, set in Germany at the end of World War II, collected an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) award at the annual ceremony earlier this month when German actor Saskia Rosendahl was honoured as Best Young Actor.

In the film, Rosendahl plays 14-year-old Lore, the eldest of five German children who are left to fend for themselves after their SS officer father and Nazi mother are interred by the Allies at the end of World War II.

The children undertake a harrowing journey across a devastated country to reach their grandmother in the north. On the journey they meet a mysterious young refugee named Thomas who Lore must learn to trust in order to survive.

Top honours at the AACTA awards went to The Sapphires, the musical drama about four Aboriginal girls who formed a singing group in the 1960s and toured Vietnam, which won Best Film, Best Director (Wayne Blair), Best Lead Actress (Deborah Mailman), Best Lead Actor (Chris O’Dowd) and Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Mauboy).

PHOTO of Saskia Rosendahl as a German teenager in Lore.