External links
- Official website Australian Film Television and Radio School
- The Internet Movie Database
- Adelaide Film Festival
- Variety
- Cowboy Books
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Michael James Rowland (born 15 January 1964) is an Australian film director.
Prior to his screen career, Rowland studied graphic design at the North Adelaide School of Art in South Australia and started his early working life as a designer and illustrator specialising in the arts. His list of freelance clients grew to include Sony (US), Womad (International) and Peter Gabriel (UK). He also held the position of Art Director with the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1987–93) a job which saw him work with some notable artists, including Peter Brook, [1] 7th Earl of Harewood, [2] Cheek by Jowl, Jan Fabre, Sankai Juku, Andy Goldsworthy, Winton Marsalis, the Kronos Quartet, Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez. He has won numerous awards for his design and illustration,[ clarification needed ] including the 1992 AADC's Master's Chair.
Michael established the graphic novella imprint Cowboy Books [3] in 1990 with the publication of the awarding winning Ten Drawings of the Jungle. This first title was followed up two years later with The Existentialist Cowboys Last Stand (1992) and Life Advice for High-Plains Drifters (2000). Cowboy Books sell throughout Europe, North America and Australia.
Michael 'retired' from graphic design in 1994, relocating to Sydney to study for a BA in Film at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). In his first year as an undergraduate the screenrights to his novella The Existentialist Cowboy's Last Stand were bought and it was made into one of Australia's most successful short films of the 1990s, along the way earning Michael his first Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. The second came with the Russian language, space-race short, Flying Over Mother (1996), cementing his reputation as an original screenwriter/director with a global audience.
His first feature film, Lucky Miles [4] (2007), is set in 1990 Western Australia. Unfolding as a traditional Australian tale of men lost in the desert, Lucky Miles packs a bold twist updating the genre with an ensemble cast including Kenneth Moraleda, [5] Rodney Afif [6] and Srisacd Sacdapraseuth. [7] Lucky Miles was chosen to be the highly successful opening night film of the 2007 Adelaide Film Festival and later that year beat out the cream of global cinema to win the audience award for Best Film at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival. Other awards include; the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; Best Screenplay at the Vladivostok International Film Festival; the Black Pearl for Best New Director at the Middle East International Film Festival; the Grand Prix at the 9th Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes and Best Film at the Asian Festival of First Films.
In 2008, Australia's national broadcaster, ABC1, programmed Lucky Miles at 8:30 pm Sunday night on the Australia Day long-weekend holiday. Its contribution to the nation's celebration.
In 2008, Rowland co-wrote and directed the one-hour ABC, RTÉ, BBC drama The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce . Set in 1824 Van Diemen's Land, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce tells the true story of an escape from the notorious British prison Sarah Island by eight convicts. Its Gothic narrative plots their privation and descent into cannibalism, through to the execution of the sole survivor, Alexander Pearce, for the murder of Thomas Cox. It was co-written and produced by Nial Fulton.
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce drew TV industry nominations in both Europe and Australia. It was nominated for Best Telefeature at the 2009 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, Best Drama at the 2009 Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) Awards and Best Drama in the 2010 Rose D'Or awards, Switzerland. Reflecting its 'factual' funding, in 2009 The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce won Best Documentary at the IF Awards.
For his work, Michael was nominated in the Best Telemovie Director category at the Australian Directors Guild Awards 2009, composer Roger Mason won Best Music for a Telemovie at the 2009 Australian Screen Music Award and Designer Felicity Abbott and props master Paul Stewart were both recognised for their work on the film at the 2009 Newport International Film Festival.
In 2009 Australia's national broadcaster, ABC1, programmed The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce in prime time on Sunday night over the Australia Day long weekend. The previous year Lucky Miles had been programmed in the same 8:30 pm slot, making it the second year in a row the ABC had screened a Rowland feature to mark the nation's celebration.
During 2010 and 2011 Michael directed 8 episodes of AFI and IF award winning series My Place, produced by Penny Chapman. He directed 3 episodes in the first series and was nominated for an Australian Directors Guild Award. He returned to the second series as set-up director and helmed a further 5 episodes.
Early in 2011 he directed two episodes of the genre breaking comedy/drama/romance Spirited, produced by Jacquelin Perske and Claudia Karvan. Mid year he directed three episodes of the ballet-teen-drama Dance Academy, produced by Werner Film Productions for ABC, and in the second half of the year directed three episodes of the award winning Foxtel drama Tangle .
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Geoff Morrell is an Australian film, television and theatre actor.
Daryl William Mathew Gabriel McInnes is an Australian film and television actor and writer. He portrayed the role of Matt Tivolli in The Time of Our Lives. He is best known for his roles as Senior Constable Nick Schultz in Blue Heelers and Max Connors in SeaChange.
Robert Scott Hicks is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He is best known as the screenwriter and director of Shine, the biopic of pianist David Helfgott. For this, Hicks was nominated for two Academy Awards. Other movies he has directed include the film adaptations of Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis and Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One.
Claudia Karvan is an Australian actress, producer and scriptwriter. As a child actor, she first appeared in the film, Molly (1983) and followed with an adolescent role in High Tide (1987). She portrayed a teacher in The Heartbreak Kid (1993) – the film was spun off into a TV series, Heartbreak High (1994–1999), with her character taken over by Sarah Lambert. Karvan's roles in television series include The Secret Life of Us (2001–2005), Love My Way (2004–2007), Newton's Law (2017) and Halifax: Retribution (2020). She won Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama at the AFI Awards for her appearance in G.P. (1996). She won two similar AFI Awards for her role in Love My Way and in 2014 for her work in The Time of Our Lives (2013–2014). As a co-producer and co-writer on Love My Way, she won three further AFI Awards for Best Drama Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Karvan was inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame in 2007 in acknowledgment of her contributions to the Australian film and television industry. From 2010 to 2011, she starred in the drama series Spirited, which she co-created and was executive producer. She appeared as Judy Vickers in Puberty Blues. Karvan has co-produced House of Hancock and Doctor Doctor (2016–current). In 2021 she co-created, co-produced and starred in the TV drama series, Bump.
Catherine McClements is an Australian actress.
Chris Haywood is an English-born Australian actor, writer and producer, with close to 500 screen performances to his name. Haywood has also worked as a casting director, art director, sound recordist, camera operator, gaffer, grip, location and unit manager.
Alister Grierson is an Australian film director and scriptwriter.
Kenneth Moraleda is an actor.
Lucky Miles is a 2007 Australian drama feature film based on several true stories involving people entering Western Australia by boat in order to seek asylum. Its director was Michael James Rowland and its producers were Jo Dyer and Lesley Dyer.
Nial William Fulton is an Australian film and television producer, director and writer. Focused on social justice issues, his works include investigative documentaries Revelation, Hitting Home, Borderland, The Queen & Zak Grieve and Firestarter. In 2013 Fulton co-founded Sydney-based independent production company In Films with Ivan O'Mahoney.
Don Hany is an Australian actor. He is best known for his role in the series White Collar Blue, Dr. Chris Havel in Offspring, and the leading role of Zane Malik in the SBS series East West 101. He is also known for starring in the film The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce.
Michael Carson was an Australian television director who was responsible for some of Australia's most significant series in the last decades of the twentieth century. His work as a director, producer and script editor was recognised with AFI Awards, Logie Awards, Penguin Awards and AWGIE Awards.
The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce is a 2008 Australian-Irish film directed by Michael James Rowland starring Irish actors Adrian Dunbar as Philip Conolly and Ciarán McMenamin as bushranger Alexander Pearce and an ensemble Australian cast, including Dan Wyllie, Don Hany and Chris Haywood. The film was shot on location in Tasmania and Sydney between April and May 2008.
Felicity Abbott is a production designer in the film and television industry.
Tony Ayres is an Australian showrunner, screenwriter, director in television and feature film. He is most notable for his films Walking on Water and The Home Song Stories, as well his work in television, including working as the showrunner on The Slap and teen adventure series Nowhere Boys.
Robert John Edwards is an Australian television drama producer.
The 3rd Adelaide Film Festival took place in Adelaide, South Australia, from 22 February to 4 March 2007. Katrina Sedgwick was again Festival Director. Rolf de Heer received the 2007 Don Dunstan Award for his contribution to the Australian film industry.
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 three books. Time Flies is Clark's memoir and third book. It a sometime-hard-to-believe-but-no-its-all-true adventure that merges the early days of punk and New Wave with the truncated British film renaissance of the 1980s and the world of international film finance. 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. Among them Clark interviewed Lauren Bacall, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred MacMurray and Robert Montgomery. His second book was Making Priscilla, also titled The Lavender Bus: How a Hit Movie Was Made and Sold, a behind the scenes tale chronicling the follies of the film making business and how The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert became an international success.
Ian Alexander Munro is an Australian film and television director and producer. His career has spanned a variety of genres including telemovies, documentaries and children’s programs.
