The cinema of Australia had its beginnings 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.
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize.
Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion is a New Zealand filmmaker. She has received two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards for her critically acclaimed films, The Piano (1993), and The Power of the Dog (2021). Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) in the 2016 New Year Honours, for services to film.
The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venice Film Festival in 1932, Cannes Film Festival in 1939 and Berlin Film Festival in 1951. Originally launched at Olinda outside Melbourne in 1952 as the Olinda Film Festival, in 1953, the event was renamed the Melbourne Film Festival. It held this title over many decades before transforming in the Melbourne International Film Festival. MIFF is one of Melbourne's four major film festivals, in addition to the Melbourne International Animation Festival (MIAF), Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) and Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF). Erwin Rado was the Melbourne Film Festival's iconic director appointed in 1956. The Australian Dictionary of Biography notes Mr Rado was the Festival's first paid director and also shaped its character with his 'uncompromising drive for excellence'. He served as MIFF Director until 1980, returning to stage the 1983 event. Other notable Directors include Tait Brady, Sandra Sdraulig, James Hewison, Artistic Director Michelle Carey and current AD, Al Cossar appointed 2018.
Jack Sargeant is a British writer specializing in cult film, underground film, and independent film, as well as subcultures, true crime, and other aspects of the unusual. In addition he is a film programmer, curator, academic and photographer. He has appeared in underground films and performances. He currently lives in Australia.
Ana Kokkinos is an Australian film and television director and screenwriter of Greek descent. She is known for her breakthrough feature film, Head On (1998), and has also directed television shows such as The Secret Life of Us and The Time of Our Lives.
Richard Franklin was an Australian film director.
Paulus Henrique Benedictus Cox, known as Paul Cox, was a Dutch-Australian filmmaker who has been recognized as "Australia's most prolific film auteur".
Film Comment is the official publication of Film at Lincoln Center. It features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. Founded in 1962 and originally released as a quarterly, Film Comment began publishing on a bi-monthly basis with the Nov/Dec issue of 1972. The magazine's editorial team also hosts the annual Film Comment Selects at the Film at Lincoln Center. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, publication of the magazine was suspended in May 2020, and its website was updated on March 10, 2021, with news of the relaunch of the Film Comment podcast and a weekly letter.
John Whitefoord Heyer was an Australian documentary filmmaker, who is often described as the father of Australian documentary film.
Cinephilia is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in films, film theory, and film criticism. The term is a portmanteau of the words cinema and philia, one of the four ancient Greek words for love. A person with a passionate interest in cinema is called a cinephile, cinemaphile, filmophile, or, informally, a film buff. To a cinephile, a movie is not just a form of entertainment as they see films from a more critical point of view.
Salvador Carrasco is a Mexican film director based in Santa Monica, California. He is the writer and director of the highly acclaimed and influential feature film The Other Conquest about the Spanish colonization of Mexico. Carrasco has won numerous film and academic awards, and is currently developing new film projects through his production company, Salvastian Pictures, based in Santa Monica, California, including film adaptations of stories by preeminent writers Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Stephen Graham Jones. Carrasco is a tenured film professor at Santa Monica College, where he is the Head of the Film Production Program, recently featured in Variety magazine. Carrasco has been featured as a guest film director at the CinemadaMare Film Festival in Italy, along with directors Margarethe von Trotta, Paolo Sorrentino, and Krzysztof Zanussi. He is also a regular contributor of Senses of Cinema.
Robert Connolly is an Australian film director, producer and screenwriter based in Melbourne, Victoria. He is best known as the director and writer of the feature films Balibo, Three Dollars and The Bank, and the producer of Romulus, My Father and The Boys. He is head of the film distribution company, Footprint Films, owned by Arenafilms.
Bill Mousoulis is an Australian film director, with approximately 100 films to his name. He is also the founder of the online film journal Senses of Cinema in 1999, and the founder of the film co-operative Melbourne Super 8 Film Group in 1985.
Rhonda Small was an Australian filmmaker who worked at the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit, first as an editor then later as a director, between 1958 and 1967.
A video essay is a piece of video content that, much like a written essay, advances an argument. Video essays take advantage of the structure and language of film to advance their arguments.
The Human Surge is a 2016 experimental film directed, written, photographed and edited by the Argentine director Eduardo Williams. It is Williams' first feature film, after a number of shorts. The Human Surge is divided into three separate narrative and geographical segments: the first in Buenos Aires, the second in Maputo, and the third in Bohol.
The Melbourne Queer Film Festival is an annual LGBT film festival held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Held in November, the festival is regarded as the largest queer film event in the Southern Hemisphere. The festival attracts around 23,000 attendees at key locations around Melbourne.
Kogonada is a South Korean-born American filmmaker. He is known for his video essays that analyze the content, form, and structure of various films and television series. The essays frequently use narration and editing as lenses, and often highlight a director's aesthetic. Kogonada—the name is a pseudonym—is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine and is frequently commissioned by The Criterion Collection to create supplemental videos for its home-video releases. He has also written, directed, and edited the feature films Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021).
The International Women's Film Festival (IWFF) was a one-off film festival focusing on women's issues and films made by women, run in several capital cities of Australia in 1975.
