THE $5,000 Dendy Live Action Short Award for best film has gone to “A Single Body,” (Un Seul Corps) directed and written by Canberra film maker Sotiris Dounoukos.

The award was announced at the closing night of the Sydney Film Festival on Sunday, when Neil Armfield’s “Holding the Man”, scripted by Queanbeyan writer Tommy Murphy, also premiered to a packed house at the State Theatre.

The win is just one in a line for Dounoukos, who has been busy throughout autumn in Canberra shooting the movie version of Helen Garner’s “Joe Cinque’s Consolation”. Dounoukos was the winner of a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award in 2014.

Recently “CityNews” reported that “A Single Body” was the $10,000 Best Short Film winner at St Kilda Film Festival and his film, made in France, also won best short at the Toronto Film Festival last year.

Dendy Jury members, Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas, Australian producer Greer Simpkin and Palestinian filmmaker Suha Arraf said in a joint statement, “we chose the film which took us to a real world, made us believe in the human story being told. The insight to these people’s lives created a world and situation which was complete and had great emotional resonance.”

Based on both the St Kilda and Sydney wins, “A Single Body” is now Academy Award eligible.