Celebrating award winning and talented Australian filmmaking women – trailblazers!
Background to Womenvision
Until the 1970’s women’s participation in the Australian film industry was virtually non-existent apart from a few lone pioneers like Lilias Fraser. In 1973, however, the nascent Sydney Women’s Film Group created a historic, breakthrough event – a weekend of women’s films, brainstorming and organising at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op. The Womenvision event became a watershed moment in the exponential growth of women’s participation in Australian film industry.
Fast forward to 2003 and the publication of Professor Lisa French’s seminal book, Womenvision, in which she wrote:
‘In the context of world feminist movements, the ‘Womenvision’ event was timely and involved attempts to both reclaim a submerged or forgotten history of women’s past contributions to the motion picture industry in Australia as well as forging ways of advancing women’s contribution to filmmaking in the future. As a publication, Womenvision creates a similar kind of discursive space in which the achievements of the intervening quarter of a century can be put into historical perspective and the imperatives of the present can be identified and discussed by a multitude of women’s voices.’
In the era of Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and with films like Promising Young Woman and Power of the Dog, the battle continues for female film practitioners and their supporters in policy, media, activism and academia to not only celebrate their achievements but also to address the ongoing challenges still facing the underrepresentation of women in Australian cinema. These challenges include childcare, occupational health and safety issues (eg long hours), education and training, funding and the global studio system.
The 2022 Pamela Denoon Lecture will identify and interrogate these and other imperatives by a range of powerful, experienced and articulate panel of women in film. The event will be recorded by ABC Big Ideas.
A star studded line-up lead by Director/Cinematographer Jane Castle and Director/Producer Pat Fiske
Meet the Panel
- Australian Director/Writer Kim Farrant via Zoom from Los Angeles (Strangerland, nominated for the Grand Jury prize at Sundance 2015; Angel of Mine; The Weekend Away for Netflix)
- Producer Sue Maslin AO (The Dressmaker, Jill Bilcock – Dancing The Invisible, Brazen Hussies, Road to Nhill and Japanese Story)
- Producer Sheila Jayadev (Way out West and Ali’s Wedding)
- Professor Lisa French (author and leading authority on women in Australian film – author of the book WomenVision),
- Director/cinematographer Jane Castle (60 Thousand Barrels, When the Camera Stopped Rolling)
- Director/ Producer Pat Fiske (Rocking the Foundations, For All the World to See, ‘Doc’ – A Portrait of Herebert Vere Evatt; Following the Fenceline, When the Camera Stopped Rolling, Rosemary’s Way, Tiger on the Rocks, Scarlet Road, Love Marriage in Kabul)