That guest list in full...

At a weekend party in the ritzy Hamptons outside New York this weekend. Many of those in attendance are fierce critics of each other-on social media. For example Steven Spielberg is a virulent critic of president Donald Trump on Twitter. Billionaires George Soros and David Koch are the polar opposite in politics. Isn't it nice that they can all sup and wine together without a fight breaking out ?

Celebrating 50 Years

Bryan Brown, Tom Keneally & Jennifer Byrne

220 friends and fans turned up to the Westin Hotel to celebrate Man Booker Prize winner Tom Keneally's fifty years of publishing books. Plenty of amusing speeches by Richard Flanagan, David Williamson,  Bryan Brown and director Fred Schepis.
It's amazing to think that when Tom wrote his first book Australia had no such things a literary agent and books were sent to the UK to be published,
No wonder as Richard Flanagan pointed out that the great Henry Lawson said that anyone contemplating a career as a writer in Oz should fetch a revolver and shoot themselves.

David & Kirsten Williamson with Richard Flanagan,        ABC's Tony Jones                         & Fred Schepisi

 Delighted US and UK agents sent congratulatory videos as did Kathy Lette but the most impressive was from director Steven Spielberg (below) who credited Keneally with Spielberg winning a host of Academy Awards for his adaption of Tom's Schindler's Ark.

Dinner Date with Tom Keneally & Steven Speilberg

An evening not to be missed. The ABC is holding a dinner event to celebrate 50 years of publishing with Oscar winning author Tom Keneally.
Actor Bryan Brown is hosting along with Kathy Lette and Richard Flanagan.
And director Steven Spielberg is expected to drop in via video. Spielberg of course produced and director Schindler's List based on Keneally's 1982 Booker Prize winning book Schindler's Ark. Tom's had 3 books listed for the Booker prize including The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith which was made into a film as was his autobiographical book The Devil's Advocate.
Tickets are $150 and the dinner is on Wednesday 11th June at the Westin Hotel. Book here.

Kathy Lette                                  Steven Spielberg                                                            Westin Hotel

AACTA Awards Announced

 The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) have announced the winners of the 2nd AACTA International Awards in Los Angeles, with actor Russell Crowe leading fellow Australians presenters Jacki Weaver and Scott Hicks.

Silver Linings Playbook won Best Film along with Best Direction for David O. Russell; and Best Lead Actress for Jennifer Lawrence.

Best Lead Actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance as Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's historical drama Lincoln. 
Best Screenplay was won by writer and director Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained while the two discretionary AACTA International Awards went to Robert De Niro for his role as an obsessive compulsive football-crazed father in Silver Linings Playbook, and to Jacki Weaver, for her role as De Niro's tolerant and forgiving wife in the film.

(But why no award yet for Samuel L.Jackson  (left) whose acting in Django Unchained is superb and worthy of an Oscar?)

On Wednesday the Social Shuttle will attend the local ACCTA Awards which will be hosted by Russell Crowe at Sydney's Star Casino.

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Nicole Kidman will fly into town on Monday to attend Wednesday's ACCTA Awards. Kidman and Keith Urban holidayed in Sydney and the NSW South Coast where they have a holiday home over the Christmas holidays, returning to the US on the 10th January. You can do these things when you have your own jet !
 
The Shuttle recalls speaking to Kidman's publicist Wendy Day at a luncheon is Sydney many years ago when Nicole was divorcing Tom Cruise.

Day was seriously worried that Nicole's career would slump, such was the power then of Cruise and the tendency for Hollywood bigwigs to line up in support of whoever they perceived as Hollywood royalty.
 Nicole of course has proved them all wrong and is the acknowledged most famous and powerful actress in the world today.

Featured on the cover of the latest Hollywood Reporter Nicole speaks about life with Tom and standing up to the Studios, Scientology and sex. 

When Celebrity Support Pays

THE AY FAMILY, Kurdish refugees from Turkey, were detained for 13 months in 2002 as the British government attempted to return them to Germany, where they had first made a claim for asylum.

At the time the youngest, Medya, was just seven when the family were arrested and locked up in 2002, Dilovan was 11, Newroz was 12 and Beriwan was 13.

But the Ay family had some high profile backers who pledged to support them in the community including actor Colin Firth, Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling and Australia's Oscar winning writer Tom Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark which was made into the film Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg,  the Devils Playground the film based on Keneally's life story, and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.

JK Rowling

Keneally, who trained to be a Catholic priest has been a long time supporter of asylum seekers both in Australia and abroad and now after a ten year campaign the four Ay children have settled out of court last week for a compensation claim rumoured to be in the high six figures.

Since their election, the Coalition government of David Cameron has pledged to end the practice of locking up child refugees.

In 2003 Keneally who lives on Sydney's Northern beaches said : "In a liberal democracy you can only maintain a policy of locking children up behind barbed wire by spreading lies and demonising the dispossessed of the earth. In the future, these children will tell their stories. There's bound to be literature that comes out of it, and people will gasp and say, 'How did that policy ever get through?'