MUMBAI: Samson & Delilah annexed six of the ten Inside Film Awards given out last night to features.

Made by writer/director Warwick Thornton, and produced by Kath Shelper, the film won the best film, best director, best script and best music awards. The film‘s two teenage leads, Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson, won best actor and best actress awards respectively.

The ceremony, held at Luna Park overlooked by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, definitely belonged to Samson & Delilah, which grossed twice its $1.5m (A$1.6m) budget at the Australian box office. But it was another film with an indigenous story at its heart, Baz Lurhmann‘s Australia, that earned the box-office achievement award for producers Luhrmann, G Mac Brown and Catherine Knapman. Told on a much bigger scale, its final Australian gross was $34.8m (A$37.5m).

Lurhmann‘s body of work, which also includes Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge!, earned him the living legend award and the team behind Australia‘s first co-production with Iran My Tehran For Sale, produced by director Granaz Moussavi, Julie Ryan and Kate Croser, won the award for independent spirit.

The IF Awards came at the end of the first day of the annual conference of the Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) which began with a stinging attack on the negative impact of direct government subsidy on Australian film.