2001 Australian Film Institute Awards
The 43rd Australian Film Institute Awards, were a series of awards presented by the Australian Film Institute. The awards celebrated the best in Australian feature film, television, documentary and short film productions of 2001. The ceremony took place at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings on 16 November 2001.
Winners and nominees
The nominations were announced on 27 October 2001. Leading the feature film nominees was Lantana, based on the play Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell, with a total of 13 nominations. It was nominated in every category except for Best Cinematography. The ABC drama SeaChange, about a city lawyer who relocates to the coastal town of Pearl Bay and becomes a local magistrate, gained the most television nominations with a total of nine.Two new awards were introduced this year; the AFI Screenwriting Prize, sponsored by Harper's Bazaar magazine and the only award that carried a cash prize, and an award for Global Achievement.
Ray Lawrence's psychological thriller, Lantana, exploring complex relationships between characters in the film, received the most awards for any production, securing all seven top awards. Kerry Armstrong won the Best Actress Award for her performance in the film, and in an unprecedented occurrence, also won Best Actress in a Television Drama Series for her role in SeaChange. In the television category SeaChange, ''The Secret Life of Us, My Brother Jack and My Husband, My Killer'' all secured two awards apiece.
Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.
Non-feature film
| Best Documentary | Best Direction in a Documentary |
| |
| Best Short Fiction Film | Best Short Animation |
| Best Screenplay in a Short Film | Best Cinematography in a Non-Feature Film |
| Best Editing in a Non-Feature Film | Best Sound in a Non-Feature Film |