Australian Aboriginal movie wins top Asia Pacific award

SYDNEY: An Australian movie highlighting the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities won top prize at the third annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards this week in which 37 films from 16 countries were competing.

The movie Samson and Delilah, directed by Warwick Thornton, won the Camera d'Or prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and has done the rounds of international film fests this year as well as being nominated for 13 Australian Film Institute Awards.

It tells the story of two Aboriginal teenagers living in squalor and highlights the desperate state of many Aboriginal communities where glue-sniffing, alcohol abuse and violence are common, although it ends on a more hopeful note.