Press release from SPAA
The Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) has announced that Gillian Armstrong, AM, will deliver the prestigious Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture on the Conference’s opening morning on Tuesday, 13 November at Central Pier, Docklands in Melbourne.
“Gillian’s extensive career as an Australian filmmaker is a tribute to her talent and vision. Her influence extends way beyond her filmmaking. An outspoken advocate for our local industry she has passionately lobbied the Government for over twenty-five years on major industry concerns. Her most recent trip to Canberra with a delegation of industry peers saw her prosecute the case for new rules to protect Australian content, which helped sway many politicians to our cause,” said Geoff Brown, SPAA Executive Director.
Gillian Armstrong became the first woman in Australia to direct a feature film in almost 50 years. In 1979, My Brilliant Career adapted from the classic novel by Miles Franklin and starring Judy Davis and Sam Neil, won seven AFI Awards – including best director and best film – and was selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Armstrong, one of our most respected and successful filmmakers, graduated from the Swinburne Art School in 1971, and became an integral part of Australia’s new wave of film and documentary making in the 70s.
Gillian Armstrong’s own brilliant career has been a cinematic triumph with a remarkable body-of-work spanning more than three decades with award-winning and critically acclaimed films such as Star Struck, Mrs. Soffel, High Tide, The Last Days of Chez Nous, Little Women, Oscar and Lucinda, Charlotte Gray, and the Houdini biopic Death Defying Acts. As a documentary-maker her films include, Bob Dylan in Concert, Bingo, Bridesmaids & Braces, Not Fourteen Again, Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst, and Love, Lust and Lies. Her films and documentaries have screened at numerous international film festivals around the world.
Gillian’s long and distinguished career has received global recognition with her films nominated for both Academy and Golden Globe Awards. Throughout her career she has garnered an impressive array of prestigious awards and accolades both here and overseas from the Australian Film Institute, the Film Critics Circle of Australia, the Houston Film Festival, Festival International de Creteil, the US National Society of Film Critics, the British Critics Association and the British Academy, the Hollywood Crystal Award for Women in Film, the Chauvel Award from the Brisbane International Film Festival for her contribution to the Australian Film Industry, and the Women in Hollywood Icon Award in recognition of her contribution to the film industry.
In 1993, Armstrong was appointed a Member of Australia for distinguished services to the Australian Film Industry. She is a founding member of the Australian Directors Guild and recipient of the Australian Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, a longtime member of the Directors Guild of America, a Member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, and holds an honorary Doctorate from Swinburne University and the University of New South Wales.
The Hector Crawford Lecture remembers the contribution of Hector Crawford to the Australian cultural industries, particularly film and television through his legendary production company Crawford Productions, his patronage of the arts and his leadership in the ‘70s of the ‘Make it Australian’ campaign which recognised the importance of Australian stories on our television screens. Previous Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture speakers have included Noel Pearson, Hilary McPhee, Harold Mitchell, Dare Jennings, Sandra Levy, Peter Garrett, Noni Hazlehurst, Anh Do, Margaret Pomeranz and Nigel Dick, AM.
Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture
Tuesday, 13 November 2012 @ 9:15am
SPAA Conference, 12 – 15 November 2012, Central Pier, Docklands, Melbourne www.spaa.org.au/conference