 |
Allanah Zitserman is an Australian scriptwriter and film producer, founder of Dungog Film Festival, and director of Lumila Films. [1] [2]
|
Allanah Zitserman is an Australian scriptwriter and film producer, founder of Dungog Film Festival, and director of Lumila Films. [1] [2]
Zitserman graduated from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 1998 with a Bachelor of Business and Communications.[ citation needed ]
In the late 1990s when she was 19, Zitserman started the popular nightspot, Barbarella at Soho Bar. [3] [4]
After graduating, Zitserman, took a production job on Strange Planet (1999) starring Naomi Watts and Claudia Karvan. [5] Shortly after she set up a film development and production company. A year later, she produced and penned her debut feature film Russian Doll (film) starring Hugo Weaving. Russian Doll earned Zitserman an AACTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. [6] In 2003, she followed this up by cowriting and producing the black comedy Horseplay starring Abbie Cornish.
Zitserman then worked in script development for a few years in London. While overseas she curated several private functions at international festivals including the Marrakech and Cannes Film Festivals. [7]
In 2005, Zitserman returned to Australia, committing her time to both script development and spearheading Dungog Film Festival, winner of the 2012 IF Awards Best Film Festival. [8]
In 2006, Zitserman was awarded the Australian Film Commission's Writer's Fellowship. [9]
From 2008 until 2012, Zitserman created the script development program "In The Raw", which saw many of its projects produced including Last Cab to Darwin , Sleeping Beauty , Strangerland (starring Nicole Kidman) and Little Death . As an extension of her festival work, in 2009, Zitserman founded, a film distribution company that championed local independent films. The company released many quality Australian films that would otherwise not have had a theatrical run, including the hard-hitting hit cult film, The Combination (film). [10]
In 2017, Zitserman started production on the feature film, Ladies in Black , [11] directed by Bruce Beresford. [12] [13] Beresford and his friend writer/producer Sue Milliken had been in development on the film since 1994. Zitserman joined the team in 2016. Beresford said in an article in The Australian, that Zitserman's involvement as producer was the X-factor they needed to get the funding across the line. [14] The film was released worldwide through Sony Pictures, starting in Australia on 20 September 2018. Ladies in Black (film) was the highest grossing Australian film in 2018 and the most nominated at the AFI/ACTAA awards. It has been critically acclaimed as a "love letter to Sydney". [15]
| Year | Title | Writer | Producer | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Russian Doll | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2003 | Horseplay | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2018 | Ladies in Black | No | Yes | No |
| 2022 | Untitled (in development) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The cinema of Australia began with the 1906 production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received international recognition. Many actors and filmmakers with international reputations started their careers in Australian films, and many of these have established lucrative careers in larger film-producing centres such as the United States.
Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and a major figure of Australian cinema, particularly Australian New Wave. He is best known for his role as a lead actor in several acclaimed Australian films, including such classics as The Club (1980), Sunday Too Far Away (1975), The Man from Snowy River (1982) and Petersen (1974). He won Cannes and AFI acting awards for the latter film.
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director, opera director, screenwriter, and producer. He began his career during the Australian New Wave, and has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee, and a four-time AACTA/AFI Awards winner out of 10 total nominations
Cate Shortland is an Australian director and screenwriter. She received international acclaim for her 2004 romantic drama film Somersault, her 2012 historical drama film Lore, and her 2017 psychological thriller film Berlin Syndrome. She is best known for directing the 2021 superhero film Black Widow.
Phillip Noyce is an Australian film and television director. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama ; thrillers ; and action films. He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), as well as the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.
Genevieve Lemon is an Australian actress and singer who has appeared in a number of Australian television series and international film, including a frequent collaboration with Jane Campion for Academy Award-winning The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021), which earned her a Satellite Award as cast member and a Critic's Choice Awards nomination.
Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger is a 2008 Australian independent teen film written and directed by Cathy Randall. It stars Danielle Catanzariti, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Toni Collette. The film follows Jewish 13-year-old Esther (Catanzariti), an outcast at her posh school, where she has no friends. That changes when she meets nonconformist Sunni (Castle-Hughes) from the local public school.
Jane Scott is a British-born Australian film producer.
Madeleine St John was an Australian writer, the first Australian woman to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
Aden Young is a Canadian-Australian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Daniel Holden in the SundanceTV drama Rectify, for which he was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. He has appeared in American, Canadian and Australian productions and since 2024 has performed the lead role of Det. Henry Graff in Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.
Sons of Steel is a 1989 Australian sci-fi fantasy musical film written, directed and composed by Gary L. Keady and produced by James M. Vernon.
The Fringe Dwellers is a 1986 film directed by Bruce Beresford, based on the 1961 novel The Fringe Dwellers by Western Australian author Nene Gare. The film is about a young Aboriginal girl who dreams of life beyond the family camp that sits on the fringe of white society.
Shirley Barrett was an Australian film director, screenwriter, and novelist. Initially Barrett was a singer in the band Fruit Pastilles from 1981-83. After ending her time in the band, Barrett went on to write for films. Her first film Love Serenade won the Caméra d'Or at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. She wrote and directed two other feature films Walk the Talk (2000) and South Solitary (2010). Barrett's script for South Solitary was awarded multiple prizes, including the Queensland Premier's Prize and the West Australian Premier's Prize. Her first novel Rush Oh! (2016) was shortlisted for the 2016 Indie Awards for Debut Fiction and the 2016 Nita May Dobbie Award, and long-listed for the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Her second novel The Bus on Thursday was released in 2018.
The Dungog Film Festival was an annual event held in the Hunter Region town of Dungog. The Dungog Film Festival was a not-for-profit arts organization that was dedicated to celebrating and promoting the Australian screen industry. The festival provided education of the Australian film and TV industry through a range of initiatives. Some proceeds of the festival have gone towards preserving the James Theatre. The festival aimed to support the Australian Film and TV Industry in a non-competitive environment that exclusively showcased Australian screen content.
The 22nd Australian Film Institute Awards ceremony, presented by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), honoured the best Australian feature films of 1980, and took place on 17 September 1980 at Regent Theatre, in Sydney, New South Wales. The ceremony was hosted by Graham Kennedy and televised in Australia on ABC.
Al Clark is an Australian film producer. He is best known for his producer role on TheAdventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and his executive producer role on the film, Chopper. Clark is also the author of four books. Time Flies and Time Flies Too are Clark's memoirs, which merge the early days of punk and new wave popular music with the truncated British film renaissance of the 1980s and the world of international film finance, and later chronicle his move to Australia and his work there. Clark's first book Raymond Chandler in Hollywood provides an insight into the work of the writer of detective fiction and includes interviews with many of the Hollywood figures who were associated with Raymond Chandler and his films. His second book Making Priscilla, also titled The Lavender Bus: How a Hit Movie Was Made and Sold, is a behind-the-scenes tale outlining the follies of film-making and how The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert became an international success.
Susan Kathleen Milliken is an Australian film producer and author.
Ladies in Black is a 2018 Australian comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford. Starring Angourie Rice, Rachael Taylor, Julia Ormond, Ryan Corr and Shane Jacobson, the film is based on the 1993 novel The Women in Black by Madeleine St John, and tells the story of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney. The film was released on 20 September 2018.
The Women in Black is a 1993 novel by Australian author Madeleine St John. It is her first novel, and is the only one she set in Australia.