The Golden Koala Award section aims to support the development of young Chinese filmmakers. Participants have to be filmmakers who have published no more than three films, which should be completed in 2 years. Currently Candidate films can be feature films only.

The judging committee is made up of 5 Australian professionals with non-chinese background recommended by the Australian Directors’ Guild. The purpose is to exclude the initiative of language in order to reflect the fairness of the awards and play a real role in sino-foreign cultural exchanges.

Awards are as follows: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Jury Prize.

The winning films and some of the shortlisted films will be shown in various Australian cities during the festival every March.