Birdsville Or Bust, the Mint Pictures documentary on the iconic outback town of Birdsville in far western Queensland, has been selected as the Australian winner of the 2021 Asian Academy Creative Awards.
The observational character-led documentary filmed the life of the Outback town as it underwent a year of tumultuous change – as well as a drought and a pandemic.
It was aired on SBS in January 2021 and is the third-highest show on the network this year across all genres (behind The Handmaid’s Tale and Who Do You Think You Are?). More than 490,000 people watched it, with an audience share of over 13 percent – almost double the slot average.
The winners were revealed earlier this month from Singapore. Mint Pictures was among several Australian production companies in the competition, which involved 15 nations and territories across 38 categories.
Birdsville Or Bust will now represent Australia in the best documentary category at the Grand Awards on December 2. The scoring system is based on the International Emmy system.
The documentary was produced by Dan Whelan, written and directed by Dan Goldberg and executive produced by Adam Kay.