Matthew Carroll OBE (born 6 June 1944) is an Australian film and TV producer. He is best known for producing films since the early 1970s including Breaker Morant , Storm Boy and Sunday Too Far Away . Later, he went into television production, producing the television series G.P. for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He was a principal in the production house Roadshow, Coote and Carroll which produced television shows for Australian and international audiences.
Carroll was born in 1944 in Sydney. Originally, he studied to be an architect at the University of New South Wales – where he met Jim Sharman, Brian Thomson and others – but became involved in television, working on Skippy and Spyforce while completing his degree.
He formed Kolossal Productions with Jim Sharman in 1972. The company produced Private Collection and Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens neither of which achieved popular or critical success.
Carroll joined the South Australian Film Corporation in 1973. His first significant role as producer was Sunday Too Far Away in 1975 produced with Gil Brealey. There were significant disagreements in post-production as several minutes were cut from the film, causing friction with director Ken Hannam. However, the finished film was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival, opened the Sydney Film Festival and won the Golden Reel at the 1974–75 Australian Film Awards. [1]
Storm Boy , produced the next year, was another critical success. It was a popular children's film both in Australia and Britain and won a medal at the Moscow Film Festival in 1977 for Best Children's Film. [2] Carroll produced Breaker Morant in 1980 which was another critical success. Carroll left the South Australian Film Corporation in 1983. [3]
In 1984, Carroll joined the television production company Roadshow Coote Carroll as managing director. It produced Australian television series and miniseries which were sold to Australian broadcasters and to international broadcasters in the UK, the Public Broadcasting Service or cable broadcasters and to European broadcasters. [4]
He produced the 1988 miniseries True Believers written by Bob Ellis, a dramatisation of Australian political life between 1940 and 1954. It was a particular favourite of Paul Keating who stated in his 1993 victory speech: "This is a victory for the true believers, for those who kept the faith through difficult times". [5]
In 1992 Carroll produced the film Turtle Beach , based on the 1981 Blanche d'Alpuget book of the same name. It caused controversy in Malaysia where the Government took exception to scenes of Malays executing refugees. [6]
Between 1989 and 1996 he produced G.P. for the ABC, which was set in an inner-Sydney suburb, with locations shot mainly in the Newtown area. It was shown on Thames Television in the UK from 1990. Carroll was proud of its focus on social issues. The show won a Human Rights Award in 1989 for its portrayal of a young child dying of AIDS. [7] During his time at Roadshow Coote Carroll, he was also involved in the development of the highly acclaimed Brides of Christ set in a Sydney convent during the 1960s.
Carroll set up as an independent producer in 1995. His first production was the 1996 film Diana & Me starring Toni Collette, which failed to break through commercially or critically. In 1999, he produced the first series of the science fiction series Farscape as well as the film Passion: The Story of Percy Grainger . In 2003, he produced The Postcard Bandit , which was nominated for Most Outstanding Miniseries or Telemovie in the Logie Awards of 2004.
Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and a major figure of Australian cinema, particularly Australian New Wave. He is best known 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 and screenwriter. He has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States.
John Russell Waters is an English-born Australian film, theatre and television actor, singer, guitarist, songwriter, and musician. He is the son of Scottish actor Russell Waters. John Waters has been in the industry for over 50 years, and was part of the Australian children's television series Play School for 18 years.
Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian war drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, who co-wrote the screenplay based on Kenneth G. Ross's 1978 play of the same name.
Village Roadshow Pictures is an American film and television production company and subsidiary of the Australian co-producer and co-financier of major Hollywood motion pictures established in 1989. It is a division under Village Roadshow Entertainment Group (VREG), which in turn is owned by an Australian media company of the same name. It has produced over 100 films since its establishment in 1989 including, as co-productions with Warner Bros., The Matrix series, the Sherlock Holmes series, the Happy Feet series, the Ocean's series, The Lego Movie and Joker. The films in the Village Roadshow library have achieved 34 number-one U.S. box office openings and received 50 Academy Award nominations, 19 Academy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards.
Bryan Neathway Brown AM is an Australian actor and author. He has performed in over eighty film and television projects since the late 1970s, both in his native Australia and abroad. Notable films include Breaker Morant (1980), Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), F/X (1986), Tai-Pan (1986), Cocktail (1988), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), F/X2 (1991), Along Came Polly (2004), Australia (2008), Kill Me Three Times (2014) and Gods of Egypt (2016). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for his performance in the television miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).
Terence Donovan, also billed as Terence J. Donovan and Terry Donovan, is a British-Australian actor of stage, television and film, and the father of actor and singer Jason Donovan.
G.P. is an Australian television series produced by Roadshow, Coote & Carroll for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the series was broadcast for 8 seasons between 1989 and 1996.
Jonathan Hardy was a New Zealand-Australian film and television actor, writer and director.
Leonie Elva "Noni" Hazelhurst, is an Australian actress, director, writer, presenter and broadcaster who has appeared on television and radio, in dramas, mini-series and made for television films, as well also on stage and in feature films since the early 1970s. Hazlehurst has been honoured with numerous awards including Australian Film Institute Awards, ARIA Awards and Logies, including being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.
Kenneth Graham Ross is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, and lyricist best known for writing the 1978 stage play Breaker Morant, that was based on the life of Australian soldier Harry "Breaker" Morant.
Helen Morse is an English-born Australian actress who has appeared in films, on television and on stage. She won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the 1976 film Caddie, and starred in the 1981 miniseries A Town Like Alice. Her other film appearances include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Agatha (1979), Far East (1982) and The Eye of the Storm (2011).
The Pacific is a 2010 American war drama miniseries produced by HBO, Playtone, and DreamWorks that premiered in the United States on March 14, 2010.
South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) is a South Australian Government statutory corporation established in 1972 to engage in film production and promote the film industry, located in Adelaide, South Australia. The Adelaide Studios are managed by the South Australian Film Corporation for the use of the South Australian film industry.
Sarah Lambert is an Australian writer, director and producer, working primarily in television.
Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens is a 1972 Australian film directed by Jim Sharman and starring Jane Harders and Helmut Bakaitis. It is the first feature-length film from Sharman, who subsequently directed The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
Robert John Edwards is an Australian television drama producer.
Breaker Morant: A Play in Two Acts is an Australian play written by Kenneth G. Ross, centred on the court-martial and the last days of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant (1864–1902) of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), that was first performed at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on Thursday, 2 February 1978, by the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Turtle Beach, also known as The Killing Beach, is a 1992 Australian film directed by Stephen Wallace and starring Greta Scacchi and Joan Chen. The screenplay was written by Ann Turner, based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Blanche d'Alpuget. It caused controversy in Malaysia, where the government took exception to scenes of Malays executing refugees.
Kennedy Miller Mitchell is an Australian film, television and video game production house in Potts Point, Sydney, that has been producing television and film since 1978. It is responsible for some of Australia's best-known and most successful films, including the four Mad Max films, the two Babe films, and the two Happy Feet films.
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