Protesters dressed as sausages storm AACTAs red carpet

A group of female filmmakers dressed as sausages have been rushed off the red carpet at an awards ceremony to celebrate Australian film in Sydney this afternoon.

More than a dozen women chanted "End the sausage party" to draw attention to the lack of opportunities for female filmmakers in Australia.

Video footage showed the demonstrators rolling on the red carpet with some getting pushed away from cameras by security staff at the AACTA Awards.

The protest was organised by Women in Film and Television NSW (WIFT), who took issue with the AACTA selecting just two movies made by women in their 28-movie screening tour.

"I don't think there is a group of men sitting in a room conspiring to exclude women," WIFT's Sophie Mathison told the Sydney Morning Herald

"I think we are dealing with a screen industry that has had no significant shift in the statistics of female engagement in 40 years."

One of the four nominees for Best Direction at the awards is a woman, Rosemary Myers, but only a handful of women are nominated in other technical categories.