Melbourne's Angie McMahon Wins Top Honour At SXSW

Australian artist Angie McMahon has proved to be one of the standout acts at SXSW this year, yesterday receiving the festival's top honour.

The Melbourne songwriter won the Grulke Prize award for a Developing Non-US Act at the Texas conference, which acknowledges "artists who are breaking new ground with their creativity and show the most promise in achieving their career goals".

Philadelphia artist Pink Sweat$ won the Developing US award, while New Zealand band The Chills were awarded the Career Act trophy. 

Past winners of the Grulke Prize include Courtney Barnett, Leon Bridges, Chvrches, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals and Haim.

The comes news as McMahon prepares to release her debut album this year.

Meanwhile, two of the Interactive Innovation awards were also taken out by local names. The Innovation In Connecting People honour was awarded to The Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation for its 'Living First Languages Digital Platform' and the Music & Audio Innovation gong was won by Melbourne self-learning headphone, nuraphone.

Finally, Queensland filmmaker Josephine Mackerras won SXSW's Grand Jury prize for Narrative Feature with her film, Alice.