Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee, director Rolf de Heer and Roadshow Films CEO Joel Pearlman are among the Australians who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) this year.
Others include costume designer Lizzy Gardiner, who famously accepted her Oscar for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in a dress made of 254 American Express gold cards in 1995.
Also invited are editor Peter Sciberras, composer Nerida Tyson-Chew, sound designer and re-recording mixer Tara Webb and sound engineer Paul ‘Salty’ Brincat.
Smit-McPhee, Sciberras and Webb were all nominated for Oscars this year for The Power of the Dog.
This year AMPAS has extended invitations to 397 people who it regards as having distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.
The 2022 ‘class’ is 44 per cent women, 37 per cent belong to underrepresented ethnic/racial communities, and 50 per cent are from 53 countries and territories outside the United States. There are 71 Oscar nominees, including 15 winners, among the invitees.
Smit Mc-Phee, most recently seen in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis as Jimmie Rodgers Snow, has been invited to join the actors branch following his Best Supporting Actor nod for his role as Peter Gordon in The Power of the Dog.
Hailing from Adelaide, 26-year-old has been acting since childhood, with his breakout role at age 10 opposite Eric Bana in Richard Roxburgh’s Romulus, My Father. His other numerous credits include The Road, Let Me In and two films in the X-Men franchise, Dark Phoenix and Apocalypse, as well as Australian projects 2067, Gallipoli and Matching Jack.
Invited to the directors branch is de Heer, who is currently in late stage post-production on his latest film, The Survival of Kindness (previously The Mountain). One of Australia’s leading directors, de Heer made his debut film in 1984 with Tail of a Tiger, with his early work including Dingo; the classic Bad Boy Bubby; The Quiet Room and Dance Me to My Song.
Over the last two decades, de Heer has been perhaps best known for his collaborations with the late David Gulpilil, spanning The Tracker, Ten Canoes and Charlie’s Country. Gulpilil died last year, aged 68, four years after a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
The auteur tells IF the invitation comes “completely out of left-field” and was unexpected, having yet to sight it himself.
“It’s a sort of recognition from your peers in way, which is nice.”
Pearlman joins the executive branch of AMPAS, recognising his work in leading Roadshow and as executive producer of films such as Seriously Red, The Dry, Penguin Bloom, Oddball and Red Dog.
Meanwhile Gardiner has been extended an invitation to the costume designer branch some 27 years after winning her Oscar for Priscilla with Tim Chappel, a film which also won a BAFTA and an AFI Award. Her other credits also span Hacksaw Ridge, the Peter Rabbit films, The Railway Man, Burning Man and Mission Impossible: II.
Composer Tyson-Chew, also an orchestrator and conductor, has been asked to join the music branch. Her more than 35-year career has included has spanned feature films, television dramas, children’s productions, documentaries and wildlife films. Her recent credits include H is for Happiness, the BAFTA-nominated animated series The Deep, Rescue – Special Ops, Batman – The Animated Series and Taboo.
“I’m simply delighted to be invited to join the worldwide membership of storytelling practitioners that make up the illustrious Academy,” she tells IF.
“It’s an honour to be included amongst so many artists that I respect and who are truly inspiring. Happiness!”
Sciberras, currently working on Garth Davis’ Foe, will join the film editors branch, recognising a body of work that in addition to The Power of the Dog includes David Michod films The King, War Machine and The Rover and Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s Hail.
Both Webb, who was nominated for Best Sound for The Power of the Dog this year, and Brincat, who was nominated in 1999 for The Thin Red Line, have been invited to the sound branch.
Among Webb’s other credits include Three Thousand Years of Longing, Mortal Kombat, The King and Hacksaw Ridge, and Brincat’s Love and Monsters, The Invisible Man, Star Wars Episode III, and Superman Returns, as well as numerous TV series such as The End, Grace Beside Me, Tidelands, Safe Harbour and Cleverman.
Kiwis invited to join include actress Rena Owen, recognising her work The Last Witch Hunter and The Dead Lands, director Briar Grace-Smith of Cousins and Waru; Studiocanal CEO Anna Marsh, VFX artist Sean Noel Walker, who was nominated for an Oscar this year for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Richard Flynn, who was nominated for Best Sound for The Power of the Dog with Webb and Robert Mackenzie.