AACTA Awards red carpet stormed by 'sausage party' protesters

Updated

Protesters stormed the AACTA Awards red carpet dressed as sausages, chanting "end the sausage party".

The group, at the 6th annual awards ceremony honouring the country's TV and film industry in Sydney, were protesting against gender inequality in the business.

Protesters who spoke to the media said they were from Women in Film and Television NSW (WIFT).

"We're actually here, dressed appropriately for Australia's biggest sausage party," they told the media.

"We're really calling on AACTA to serve up some more transparency in their really poor gender performance."

The group streamed their protest live on Facebook and posted a statement on their website, saying they "staged a public protest to highlight the disproportionately low amount of nominations and pre-selected films directed and driven by female creatives."

"Of 28 narrative feature films pre-selected for AACTAs Screening Tour, just two were directed by women, nullifying a call for quotas in award juries."

They were removed by security, before being confronted by police.

Before the protesters, the only star to give paws to the waiting media was a cattle dog by the name of Phoenix, the star of upcoming film Red Dog: True Blue.

Isla Fisher was happy to stop and talk on the red carpet as she was accompanied by her husband, Ali G star Sacha Baron Cohen.

Fisher came home for the event to receive the Trailblazer Award.

"It's such an honour," she said.

"I feel like not that long ago I was holding a hamburger phone to my ear in the Summer Bay diner and now I'm here on the red carpet beside such accomplished actors as Geoffrey Rush and Paul Hogan so it's phenomenal."

Mel Gibson won Best Direction for his World War II drama Hacksaw Ridge, which also picked up best film, best screenplay, and two actor awards.

"All the way up and down it's a homegrown film," Gibson told the audience in an emotional speech.

ABC/AAP

Topics: offbeat, film-movies, television, awards-and-prizes, sydney-2000, australia

First posted