Cate Blanchett
Lifetime Achievement Award
Cate Blanchett
Lifetime Achievement Award
Liane Moriarty
Excellence in Literature
Liane Moriarty is the Australian author of eight internationally bestselling novels, Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot, The Hypnotist’s Love Story and the number one New York Times bestsellers The Husband’s Secret, Big Little Lies and Truly Madly Guilty and most recently Nine Perfect Strangers. Her books have sold over fifteen million copies worldwide, including three million in Australia and New Zealand.
Screen rights have been sold to all of Liane Moriarty‘s novels. A TV series is in development for Three Wishes, Nicole Kidman has bought the rights to The Last Anniversary, film rights to What Alice Forgot have been pre-empted by Sony TriStar with Jennifer Aniston starring as Alice and Heather Graham will star in an adaptation of The Hypnotist’s Love Story.
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With Big Little Lies, Liane became the first Australian author to have a novel debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list and it has been adapted for television by Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon who also star in the series, scripted by David E Kelley. The first season of the HBO series of Big Little Lies was nominated for sixteen, and won five Emmy Awards, including ‘Outstanding Limited Series’ and ‘Outstanding Lead Actress’ for Nicole Kidman’s role as Celeste. Nine Perfect Strangers, also a New York Times Top Ten Bestseller, and also optioned by Nicole Kidman, went straight to no. 1 in Australia and was the highest selling fiction title in 2018, resulting in the third year running that Liane Moriarty was the highest selling fiction author overall. Liane has also written a children’s book series, Nicola Berry and the Petrifying Problem with Princess Petronella, Nicola Berry and the Shocking Trouble on the Planet of Shobble and Nicola Berry and the Wicked War on the Planet of Whimsy.
Truly Madly Guilty also debuted at number one in its first week of publication on the New York Times bestseller list and both Big Little Lies and Truly Madly Guilty were number one bestsellers in Australia. Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon have also optioned the film rights to Truly Madly Guilty.
Aaron Pedersen
Excellence in Television
Aaron Pedersen started his acting career in 1994 where he starred in the television miniseries Heartland. He then proceeded to star in television series Wildside in 1997 and Water Rats for two seasons from 1999. He went on to have roles in MDA and the multi award winning series Secret Life of Us. The SBS drama The Circuit, where Aaron played an Indigenous lawyer, was produced and shot in Broome WA and then Aaron went on to star in City Homicide. Jack Irish was his next television series where he worked alongside Guy Pearce.
In 2013 Aaron was cast in the lead role for the feature film Mystery Road playing Detective Jay Swan. Due to the success of Mystery Road the sequel Goldstone was produced in 2016. Aaron’s performance in both films saw him nominated for an Asia Pacific Screen Award in the Best Actor category and also won him an Australian Film Critics Association in the Best Actor category. Aaron’s other feature films include Killing Ground and 1%.
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2019 continued to be a busy year for Aaron as it also included shooting two feature films Dirt Music due to be released in 2020 and High Ground, also produced by Bunya productions, which is to have its worldwide premiere at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival. Along with his feature films Aaron also filmed another two television series, the multi award nominated series Total Control alongside Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths, and the STAN/Disney ABC Studios international miniseries The Gloaming. 2020 began with Aaron shooting a German/Australian feature film Outback Odyssey in outback Australia. Then followed the ABC documentary Australia Remastered which comprises 23-hour long episodes that Aaron hosts and narrates. Aaron is currently finishing filming on a second ABC documentary Back To Nature which saw him travel to the most remote areas of Australia. 2020 will finish with Aaron reprising his role of Cam Delray alongside Guy Pearce in the final chapter of the Jack Irish series. Aaron is a proud descendant of the Arrernte and Arabana nations