News

The Australian Directors' Guild has appointed Samantha Lang as president - its second female president, after Gillian Armstrong.

Jeffrey Walker (Jack Irish), Jen Peedom (Sherpa) and Jonathan Brough (Time of Our Lives) will also join the Australian Directors' Guild board.

The Adg Board is comprised of members working as directors across feature film, television, documentary and digital content.

Australian Directors' Guild chief executive, Kingston Anderson, said the new directors were from a wide range of disciplines across feature film, television, documentary and digital. .

"I would like to thank outgoing directors Donald Crombie, Rebecca Barry and Anthony Lucas for their service to the Guild,. he said.

At the Agm the membership expressed its appreciation of the work of outgoing president Ray Argall with a unanimous vote of thanks.

Stephen Wallace, long time board member and President of the Australian Screen Directors Authorship Collection Agency (Asdacs), praised Argall's work over the past 10 years.

David Argue has rediscovered his passion for acting after playing an Australian astronaut in Astro Loco, the debut feature from writer-director Aaron McLoughlin. The actor who made his name in the 1980s classics Gallipoli, BMX Bandits and Razorback, shot the sci-fi comedy at Rmit University.s studios in Melbourne after taking a self-imposed break .

Explaining the hiatus, he tells If, .On a couple of projects I felt I was not treated the right way, or the film was shafted..

Astro Loco follows four misfit astronauts who discover during their mission they have been given one-way tickets and they.re not going home.

.When Aaron sent me the treatment I thought, .That.s right out there,. a bit like Red Dwarf,. Argue says. .My character Lucien is quite angry, he.s not the full astronaut..

The actor thoroughly enjoyed the shoot, observing, .It was an awakening, my reconnection with the film business.

Some of the leading lights of the film and TV production industry and TV network commissioning editors will take part in Meet the Producers sessions at the upcoming Australian Directors Guild conference.

Themed Directing in the Digital Age, the conference will be held in Sydney from November 6-8 at the Sebel Pier One.

In Meet the Producers, Adg members will have the chance to spend 15 minutes with reps from Goalpost Pictures, Matchbox, Essential, Porchlight, Hopscotch Films, ABC, Sbs, Playmaker Media and others. There will be a maximum of two meetings per delegate.

The line-up of speakers includes Us-based Australian Ben Lewin, who wrote and directed The Sessions, Gillian Armstrong, Fred Schepisi, Jonathan Teplitzy, Stephen Wallace, Ray Argall, Kim Mordaunt, Bob Connolly, Kimble Rendall and Peter Andrikidis.

Among the topics to be addressed in sessions are The Rise of the Genre Film in Australia, The Demise of the One-Off Documentary, Film is Dead,...

Matt Saville, Tony Krawitz and Jeffrey Walker won two awards each at the Australian Directors Guild Awards on Friday evening.

Saville won for the episode of The Slap that focused on Harry and for Cloudstreet in the drama series and mini-series categories respectively; Krawitz.s The Tall Man was voted best film in the feature documentary category and he was also chosen as the Finders Award recipient; and Jeffrey Walker was presented with both the inaugural Esben Storm Award for children.s TV for series three of H2O: Just Add Water and the award for TV comedy for Angry Boys.

Mrs Carey.s Concert, directed by Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond, was the joint winner of the documentary feature category, and Walker shared his comedy award with Stuart MacDonald and the show.s on-screen star, Chris Lilley.

One of the most touching moments of the night was when the audience...

Sleeping Beauty: won best direction in a feature

This evening’s Australian Directors’ Guild Awards saw Julia Leigh claim the best direction in a feature film gong for Sleeping Beauty.

Matthew Saville won two awards – for best direction in a TV mini series for Cloudstreet and best direction in a TV drama series for The Slap.

Sbs series Go Back To Where You Came From, which has just won international acclaim at the Rose d’Or Festival in Switzerland, took the best direction of a documentary series award for Ivan O’Mahoney.

Best direction of a TV ad went to Damien Toogood for Sydney Dogs and Cats Home.

The results in full:

Best Direction in a TV Drama Series: Matthew Saville for The Slap (Ep 3 – Harry) Best Direction in a TV Mini Series: Matthew Saville for Cloudstreet Best Direction in a Feature Film: Julia Leigh for Sleeping Beauty Best...

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,...