(L-r) Scott Murray, John B. Murray, his second wife Annie and daughter Sue.
John B. Murray, one of the pioneers of the modern Australian cinema, died yesterday in Melbourne after a massive stroke. He was 88.
The writer/producer/director and distributor was one of the guiding lights of the industry from the 1960s.
He was the first director of the Film, Radio and Television Board at the Australian Council for the Arts, which later became the Australia Council and subsequently was transferred to the Australian Film Commission when it was established in 1975.
Former Australian Film Commission CEO Kim Williams tells If: “He made a very substantial contribution and should be remembered especially for his courage in establishing the early video access centres around the country.
“He also got the the Chauvel and Longford cinemas going in Sydney and Melbourne under the then AFI, with their Australian programming and as venues...
John B. Murray, one of the pioneers of the modern Australian cinema, died yesterday in Melbourne after a massive stroke. He was 88.
The writer/producer/director and distributor was one of the guiding lights of the industry from the 1960s.
He was the first director of the Film, Radio and Television Board at the Australian Council for the Arts, which later became the Australia Council and subsequently was transferred to the Australian Film Commission when it was established in 1975.
Former Australian Film Commission CEO Kim Williams tells If: “He made a very substantial contribution and should be remembered especially for his courage in establishing the early video access centres around the country.
“He also got the the Chauvel and Longford cinemas going in Sydney and Melbourne under the then AFI, with their Australian programming and as venues...
- 6/2/2020
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
Jenny Woods.
Friends and former colleagues are paying tribute to Jenny Woods, a long-time executive at Film Finances Australasia, as a consummate professional and champion of Australian films and documentaries.
Woods, who died on July 31, aged 75, retired last year after more than five decades in the screen industry, the last 25 years as the documentary representative at Film Finances.
A former general manager of the New South Wales Film Corp., she joined the completion bond company in 1993 at the invitation of then head Sue Milliken and supervised the delivery of more than 400 documentaries.
“In all my years as a distributor we had one film, a feature documentary, which went seriously astray and the investors left responsibility to me to bring in the completion guarantor,” Ronin Films MD Andrew Pike tells If.
“The guarantor was represented by Jenny and she was fabulous – she guided me through the whole difficult process with humour...
Friends and former colleagues are paying tribute to Jenny Woods, a long-time executive at Film Finances Australasia, as a consummate professional and champion of Australian films and documentaries.
Woods, who died on July 31, aged 75, retired last year after more than five decades in the screen industry, the last 25 years as the documentary representative at Film Finances.
A former general manager of the New South Wales Film Corp., she joined the completion bond company in 1993 at the invitation of then head Sue Milliken and supervised the delivery of more than 400 documentaries.
“In all my years as a distributor we had one film, a feature documentary, which went seriously astray and the investors left responsibility to me to bring in the completion guarantor,” Ronin Films MD Andrew Pike tells If.
“The guarantor was represented by Jenny and she was fabulous – she guided me through the whole difficult process with humour...
- 8/5/2019
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
John D. Lamond.
John D. Lamond, one of the pioneers of Australia’s Ozploitation film industry, died today in a nursing home on the Gold Coast, aged 71.
The producer-writer-director had been battling Parkinson’s disease for more than 20 years.
Mark Hartley’s documentary Not Quite Hollywood celebrated Lamond’s idiosyncratic contributions to the Ozploitation genre and featured his tongue-in-cheek quote, “I’m told I treat women like a sex object. I suppose it’s true because I ask for sex – and they object.”
Hartley tells If: “He was a lovely guy, funny, cheeky, warm and irreverent, and so supportive of me. John, Tony Ginnane, Brian Trenchard-Smith and Richard Franklin kept egging me on to make Not Quite Hollywood.
“He was always totally unapologetic about his films and he had no reason to be apologetic. It was only when he tried to make more commercial films that his finger wasn’t on the pulse.
John D. Lamond, one of the pioneers of Australia’s Ozploitation film industry, died today in a nursing home on the Gold Coast, aged 71.
The producer-writer-director had been battling Parkinson’s disease for more than 20 years.
Mark Hartley’s documentary Not Quite Hollywood celebrated Lamond’s idiosyncratic contributions to the Ozploitation genre and featured his tongue-in-cheek quote, “I’m told I treat women like a sex object. I suppose it’s true because I ask for sex – and they object.”
Hartley tells If: “He was a lovely guy, funny, cheeky, warm and irreverent, and so supportive of me. John, Tony Ginnane, Brian Trenchard-Smith and Richard Franklin kept egging me on to make Not Quite Hollywood.
“He was always totally unapologetic about his films and he had no reason to be apologetic. It was only when he tried to make more commercial films that his finger wasn’t on the pulse.
- 10/24/2018
- by The IF Team
- IF.com.au
The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts is calling for recommendations for the Aacta Longford Lyell Award, the Academy.s highest honour for an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the Australian screen industry and culture.
Known as the AFI | Aacta Raymond Longford Award since its inception in 1968, the name was changed this year to recognise Lottie Lyell, film pioneer. Longford.s partner in filmmaking and life.
Screenwriter/producer Andrew Knight was the first recipient at the 4th Aacta Awards in January..
Those who wish to submit a recommendation should provide a letter detailing the prospective candidate's achievements, including a CV or brief filmography, and outlining why he or she should be considered for the award.
Recommendations should be emailed to awards manager Chloe Boulton by 5pm on Wednesday June 24.
In the first three years since the launch of Aacta in 2011, the award went to Don McAlpine,...
Known as the AFI | Aacta Raymond Longford Award since its inception in 1968, the name was changed this year to recognise Lottie Lyell, film pioneer. Longford.s partner in filmmaking and life.
Screenwriter/producer Andrew Knight was the first recipient at the 4th Aacta Awards in January..
Those who wish to submit a recommendation should provide a letter detailing the prospective candidate's achievements, including a CV or brief filmography, and outlining why he or she should be considered for the award.
Recommendations should be emailed to awards manager Chloe Boulton by 5pm on Wednesday June 24.
In the first three years since the launch of Aacta in 2011, the award went to Don McAlpine,...
- 6/9/2015
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Aacta.s Raymond Longford Award almost certainly will be renamed the Longford Lyell Award in recognition of Lottie Lyell, the Australian film pioneer.s partner in life and filmmaking. Producer Tony Buckley has been lobbying for the change for two years, a campaign that has been widely supported. Now Aacta is putting the proposal to its members, seeking feedback by October 10. .We think it.s a really good suggestion,. AFI | Aacta CEO Damian Trewhella told If today. .Informally we have had a lot of support and no one has objected. Unless there are strong alternative views there is a strong chance we will adopt the new name.. First presented in 1968, the award is the highest accolade the Australian Academy can bestow upon an individual who has made a truly outstanding contribution to the enrichment of Australia's screen environment and culture. Previous recipients include Peter Weir, Geoffrey Rush, Fred Schepisi, Ken G. Hall,...
- 9/25/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Australian cinemagoers have switched off Australian films and new approaches are needed to win them back, according to some producers, directors, actors and other industry players.
Others say there is a wider problem: independent cinema globally, not just in Australia, is suffering from a downturn.
If.s story about the challenges facing Australian films in light of last weekend.s openings of Predestination and Felony has prompted scores of responses and numerous suggestions on how to lift the industry.s profile and success rate.
.The reality is that audiences have a knee-jerk negative reaction to local films,. said producer and screen industry consultant Julie Marlow. .Contrast with the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Australian made television. A whole range of factors is at work here [including] cost, comfort of lounge room, time shift, episodic format etc.
.The solution won't be simple - maybe it is 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,...
Others say there is a wider problem: independent cinema globally, not just in Australia, is suffering from a downturn.
If.s story about the challenges facing Australian films in light of last weekend.s openings of Predestination and Felony has prompted scores of responses and numerous suggestions on how to lift the industry.s profile and success rate.
.The reality is that audiences have a knee-jerk negative reaction to local films,. said producer and screen industry consultant Julie Marlow. .Contrast with the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Australian made television. A whole range of factors is at work here [including] cost, comfort of lounge room, time shift, episodic format etc.
.The solution won't be simple - maybe it is 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,...
- 9/3/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Australian actress Wendy Hughes dead at 61 (photo: Wendy Hughes in ‘Newsfront’) Australian film, television, and stage actress Wendy Hughes, best known internationally for the big-screen dramas My Brilliant Career and Careful, He Might Hear You, died of cancer early today, March 8, 2014, in Sydney. Hughes (born on July 29, 1952, in Melbourne) was 61. Wendy Hughes’ film career kicked off in the mid-’70s, with Tim Burstall’s psychological drama ‘Jock’ Petersen / Petersen (1974), in which she plays the wife of a college professor who becomes romantically involved with a married student (Jack Thompson). "I spent a lot of the time naked and doing sex scenes," Hughes would later recall about her work in ‘Jock’ Petersen, "because in the seventies you all had to do that." In 1979, Hughes landed a key supporting role in the international arthouse hit My Brilliant Career, Gillian Armstrong’s late 19th-century-set tale of an independent-minded young woman (a Katharine Hepburn...
- 3/9/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Wendy Hughes, who has died in Sydney aged 61, will be remembered by her peers as one of the finest actors of her generation.
Hughes won the AFI award for best actress for Careful, He Might Hear You in 1983 and was nominated on six other occasions, for Newsfront, My Brilliant Career, Lonely Hearts, My First Wife, Echoes of Paradise and Boundaries of the Heart.
.She was a brilliant actress who set the standard and was pioneering for her era,. filmmaker Philippe Mora, who was a close friend in the 1980s and early 1990s, told If.
.In my opinion without Wendy there would have been no Judy Davis, no Nicole Kidman and no Cate Blanchett. If timing had been different she would have been a major international star. As it is she leaves a legacy of perfect performances as one of Australia's greatest actresses..
Mora wanted to cast Hughes as the female...
Hughes won the AFI award for best actress for Careful, He Might Hear You in 1983 and was nominated on six other occasions, for Newsfront, My Brilliant Career, Lonely Hearts, My First Wife, Echoes of Paradise and Boundaries of the Heart.
.She was a brilliant actress who set the standard and was pioneering for her era,. filmmaker Philippe Mora, who was a close friend in the 1980s and early 1990s, told If.
.In my opinion without Wendy there would have been no Judy Davis, no Nicole Kidman and no Cate Blanchett. If timing had been different she would have been a major international star. As it is she leaves a legacy of perfect performances as one of Australia's greatest actresses..
Mora wanted to cast Hughes as the female...
- 3/8/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Roger Savage; photo by Zorro Gamarnik
A 40-year veteran of the Australian film industry has been recognised for his achievements by the Australian Screen Sound Guild Awards.
The Syd Butterworth lifetime Achievement Award went to sound mixer Roger Savage at a ceremony last night at Sydney’s The Establishment.
Savage’s first film was a surf documentary about the 1970 World Championship, Getting Back To Nothing, directed by Tim Burstall in 1971. His next film was Mad Max in 1979 Mad Max, as well as other classics Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Crocodile Dundee. More recently Savage has worked on Mao’s Last Dancer and Mental.
Elsewhere at the awards, Burning Man won the best film sound recording beating out Wish You Were Here, Swerve, Lore and Killer Elite.
In a similar list of nominees, the best Film Sound Design went to Wish You Were Here ahead of Burning Man, Lore,...
A 40-year veteran of the Australian film industry has been recognised for his achievements by the Australian Screen Sound Guild Awards.
The Syd Butterworth lifetime Achievement Award went to sound mixer Roger Savage at a ceremony last night at Sydney’s The Establishment.
Savage’s first film was a surf documentary about the 1970 World Championship, Getting Back To Nothing, directed by Tim Burstall in 1971. His next film was Mad Max in 1979 Mad Max, as well as other classics Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Crocodile Dundee. More recently Savage has worked on Mao’s Last Dancer and Mental.
Elsewhere at the awards, Burning Man won the best film sound recording beating out Wish You Were Here, Swerve, Lore and Killer Elite.
In a similar list of nominees, the best Film Sound Design went to Wish You Were Here ahead of Burning Man, Lore,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
Diane Cilento, a tall, voluptuous, sometimes blonde/sometimes brunette beauty best remembered for her Academy Award-nominated performance in the 1963 Oscar winner Tom Jones, died in Cairns, in the north of Queensland, according to an online report in the Australian publication The Newsport/Port Douglas Daily. The report says Cilento was 81; as per the IMDb, she had turned 78 yesterday. The cause of death, "after a long battle with illness," hasn't been disclosed. Born to a family of doctors on Oct. 5, 1933, in Brisbane, Queensland, Cilento began her film career in British and British-set Hollywood productions of the early 1950s. By mid-decade, Cilento was already getting cast in leads and semi-leads, in mid-level fare such as Roy Ward Baker's Passage Home (1955), opposite Anthony Steel and Peter Finch, and Alan Bromly's The Angel Who Pawned Her Harp (1956), in the title role as an angel who, in order to fulfill her mission on Earth,...
- 10/7/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Margaret Pomeranz delivered a powerful keynote speech at the opening of the Spaa Conference yesterday in Sydney, and Encore has the full transcript of her meditation on the state of Australian film and television – and why Government and audiences should appreciate the arts a little more.
I’m extremely grateful to Spaa for inviting me to give this keynote speech today. It is the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture and I want to honour the man today. Hector put Australian television on the map, he made Australian accents acceptable in the media. Do you remember when we could only stomach New Zealanders reading our news because they sounded more English than us? Brian Henderson was a prime example. But more than that Hector validated Australian writers, Australian actors, directors, designers, a whole Australian infrastructure, Some of those people are still working today. In a very significant way Hector created an industry,...
I’m extremely grateful to Spaa for inviting me to give this keynote speech today. It is the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture and I want to honour the man today. Hector put Australian television on the map, he made Australian accents acceptable in the media. Do you remember when we could only stomach New Zealanders reading our news because they sounded more English than us? Brian Henderson was a prime example. But more than that Hector validated Australian writers, Australian actors, directors, designers, a whole Australian infrastructure, Some of those people are still working today. In a very significant way Hector created an industry,...
- 11/18/2010
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
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