Australian Film Institute (AFI) 2008 award nominations announced.

As anticipated, the nominations for the 2008 AFI awards were very different to the nominations for the Inside Film awards, with two films dominating proceedings – 'The Black Balloon' lead the way with 11 nominations and 'Unfinished Sky' receiving 10. But two other films – 'The Jammed' and 'The Square' were not far behind, each receiving 7.

'The Black Balloon', a first-time feature film by Elissa Down, has already achieved the most successful Australian film at the home box-office (so far) for 2008 and earlier in the year gained the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The film was loved by audiences and critics alike for its charm and the performances by its young central cast (ably supported by Oscar nominee Toni Collette). 'Unfinished Sky' is a more traditional 'arthouse' film and which won critical plaudits at home and on the international film festival circuit. It will be a close run thing between the two films.

'The Square' is viewed by many as the best Australian film of the year, but it bombed at the home box-office and this is likely to impact on its chances on the night. 'The Jammed' and its history saw the procedures for nominations to the awards change. The film appeared on the film festival circuit in early 2007 but failed to pick up a commercial release and was destined to be a 'straight to DVD'. But one Melbourne distributor picked the film up for promotional screenings of the home theatre release, critics reviewed it, loved it and more screenings around the country were added at the end of 2007, thus qualifying (with a few rule changes) to be considered for this year's awards.

A couple of films expected to make more impact at the box-office and awards nights picked up a few awards between them, with Gillian Armstrong's 'Death Defying Acts' starring local hero Guy Pearce and Oscar-winner Catherine Zeta-Jones collecting only 4 nominations (although one was for Guy Pearce) and Jonathan Ogilvie's 'The Tender Hook' with Hugo Weaving scoring 5 nominations in the 'lesser' categories of art, costume and production design. 'The Children of the Silk Road' – an Australian/Chinese co-production managed only 2 nominations.

Only one film from the documentary nominations received commercial release – 'Not Quite Hollywood' and it was, sadly, a box-office disaster – made worse by the fact that it was selected as the opening film for the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Announcements and the award ceremony will take place in Melbourne in early December.