Sally Aitken (director)

Sally Aitken
Occupation(s)	Director, writer, producer
Years active	2004–present

Sally Aitken is an Australian documentary film and television director, writer, and producer. She is known for Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story; David Stratton: A Cinematic Life; and Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles. She is co-founder, co-principal (with Aline Jacques), and director of the all-female film production company SAM Content.

Career

Sally Aitken has produced, written, and directed several documentary films. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

She is known for her work on the documentaries Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story, David Stratton: A Cinematic Life (about film critic David Stratton), Streets of Your Town , and The Week the Women Went . ^{[4] [5]}

In 2022, she co-founded the production company Sam Content, with Aline Jacques. ^[6] In the same year, her documentary Playing with Sharks, which was produced by Bettina Dalton, was screened at Sundance. ^[7]

She co-wrote, directed and produced the documentary feature, Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles, for Amazon Prime Video, ^[8] released in 2023. Co-writer and -director was Fraser Grut, and Aline Jacques, Cass Avery, Daniel Story, and Fraser Grut were co-producers on the film. ^[9]

She wrote and directed the feature-length documentary, Every Little Thing, which was selected for screening in the documentary competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film was produced by Bettina Dalton, ^[7] and edited by Tania Nehme. ^[10] It also screened at Adelaide Film Festival in October 2024, with Aitken in attendance at the first screening. The film follows retired writer and teacher Terry Masear, who rescues injured and abandoned hummingbirds at her bird rescue centre, the Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue, for a season. ^[11]

Accolades

Aitken was nominated for Emmy Awards in 2018 at the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming for the documentary film David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, and at the 43rd News and Documentary Emmy Awards for the documentary Playing With Sharks in 2022. ^{[12] [13]}

List of awards and nominations

Year	Result	Award	Category	Work	Ref.
2022	Nominated	AACTA Awards	Best Direction in Nonfiction Television	Books That Made Us	[14]
2021	Nominated		Best Documentary	Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story	[15]
	Nominated	Australian Writers' Guild	Documentary – Public Broadcast		[16]
	Won	Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Film Festival	World Cinema – Documentary		[17]
	Won	Provincetown International Film Festival	Best Documentary		[18]
	Nominated	Sundance Film Festival	World Cinema – Documentary		[19]
2017	Nominated	Cannes Film Festival	Golden Eye	David Stratton: A Cinematic Life	[20]
	Nominated	AWGIE Awards	Best Documentary	Streets of Your Town	[21]
2009	Nominated	Leo Awards	Best Documentary Program or Series	The Week the Women Went	[22]
2008	Nominated	Gemini Awards	Best Reality Program or Series		[23]

Filmography

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Note
2024	Every Little Thing	Y	Y		Documentary
2023	Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles	Y	Y	Y	Documentary
2021	Books That Made Us	Y			TV series
2021	Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth	Y			Documentary
2021	Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story	Y	Y		Documentary
2019	The Pool	Y	Y		2 episodes
2018	Nolan – The Man and the Myth	Y	Y		Documentary
2018	The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook with Sam Neill	Y	Y	Y	6 episodes
2017	David Stratton: A Cinematic Life	Y			3 episodes
2016	Streets of Your Town	Y	Y		Documentary
2015	Getting Frank Gehry	Y	Y	Y	Documentary
2015	Imagine	Y	Y	Y	TV series
2015	The Great Australian Race Riot	Y	Y	Y	Documentary
2013	Air Rescue	Y			6 episodes
2012	Family Confidential	Y	Y		1 episode
2011	Seduction in the City	Y	Y		Documentary
2009	Ultimate Engineering	Y		Y	1 episode
2008	The Week the Women Went	Y		Y	8 episodes
2007	National Geographic: Engineering the Impossible	Y	Y	Y	1 episode
2006	The Blonde Mystique	Y	Y		Documentary
2006	Warrior Empire: The Mughals of India	Y		Y	Documentary
2004	Colonial House	Y	Y	Y	2 episodes

References

1. ""The Natural World and Our Interconnectedness": Director Sally Aitken – Playing With Sharks". filmmakermagazine.com. 29 January 2021. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
2. "24 Hours With… TV director Sally Aitken". mumbrella.com.au. 9 November 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
3. "Australian TV Veterans Launch Production Banner Sam Content". hollywoodreporter.com. 26 September 2022. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
4. "David Stratton: A Cinematic Life". timeout.com. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
5. "The week the women left". news24.com. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
6. "Sally Aitken and Aline Jacques Launch SAM Content With Quartet of Australian Film and TV Shows". Variety. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
7. "Australian titles The Moogai and Every Little Thing selected for Sundance Film Festival 2024". Screen Australia. 8 December 2023. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
8. "Wiggles tale has 'deep universal themes of any heroic journey' says director". smh.com.au. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
9. "Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles (2023)". Screen Australia. 16 March 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
10. "Every Little Thing (2023)". Screen Australia. 16 March 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
11. "Every Little Thing". Adelaide Film Festival. 27 October 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
12. "2018 International Emmy Awards Nominees". iemmys.tv. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
13. "NOMINEES ANNOUNCED FOR THE 43RD ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY AWARDS" (PDF). theemmys.tv. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
14. "AACTA reveals 2022 film, TV nominations". news.com.au. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
15. "AACTA Award for Best Documentary". aacta.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
16. "AWGIE Awards 2021: nominees". tvtonight.com.au. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
17. "AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS". mspfilm.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
18. "PROVINCETOWN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2021 WINNERS". provincetownfilm.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
19. "2021 Sundance Film Festival: Full Program Announced". sundance.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
20. "FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY NOMINEES". aacta.org. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
21. "AWGIEs Wrote This: Winners Announced". filmink.com.au. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
22. "2009 LEO AWARD NOMINEES & WINNERS" (PDF). leoawards.com. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
23. "Nominees in major categories for the 23rd Gemini Awards". thestar.com. Retrieved 10 July 2022.

External links

• Sally Aitken at IMDb
• SAM Content