Julia Zemiro looks like Her.

Zemiro hosted the If Awards, the Oz event for locally-made films. Tonight The Home Song Stories (which I reviewed in August) won five awards. It's a bio-pic by Tony Ayres, a Chinese-Australian.

The love sonnets were written on 27 October (two items: 'Were we alone in this metropolis' and 'I don’t know if it’s good or bad'), 28 October ('I park my car, walk to the café'), 30 October ('You say that she has eyes that sum you up'), 31 October/1 November ('I lay an open book on the table'), 2 November ('Silence please. I’m in awe of the power'), and 4 November ('I drive through Petersham again').

Awards, and especially the speeches they generate, are always just slightly off-key. There's something degenerate about the drone of job titles you hear ("I'd like to thank my co-director and my other co-director"), and the sweaty pleasure a recipient exudes when standing at the dias.

It's not cool to be so overwhelmed by the acceptance of your peers. Worst of all are the sweet endearments ("I can't name you all but you know I love you") that spring like posies of cut flowers from their lips. Their awful graciousness ("I'd like to recognise the original owners of this land").

Their smug fulfillment. Safety in numbers. Money is involved.

Thank god for Zemiro. A real, live woman who admits to swooning over Mel Gibson at the Belvoir Theatre in the seventies, with her mum waiting outside, in the car, urging her daughter (with two friends, natch) to get the young man's autograph.