5:00 – 7:00 Saturday 24th August
Byron Bay Services Club
Ever wanted to know how a screen director makes a hit? Join the Executive Director of the Australian Directors Guild, Kingston Anderson in conversation with two of Australia’s leading directors on their techniques, careers and successes.
Kriv Stenders is one of Australia’s most renowned Screen Directors, his multi-award winning feature film Red Dog is in the top ten highest-grossing Australian films of all time. His latest film Danger Close is in cinemas now.
Rachel Landers is an award-winning Documentary Director, author and educator.
Together, these two directors can tell you just about all you need to know about directing for the screen.
Following the ‘In Conversation’, the guest speakers will stick around for a drink and meet people.
Tickets $20 /$10 Screenworks members (plus booking fee)
KRIV STENDERS
Kriv Stenders is one of Australia’s most renowned and respected film and television directors with numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning shorts, documentaries, music videos, television series and feature films to his credit.
His feature films include The Illustrated Family Doctor (Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival), Blacktown (Audience Award Winner Sydney Film Festival), Boxing Day (Adelaide Film Festival Premiere and Jury Special Mention/ Best Actor Award at the Busan and Montreal Nouveu Cinema International Film festivals). Kriv’s fourth feature, Lucky Country received two AFI nominations as well as being in Official Selection for the Adelaide, Cork, Montreal, Palm Springs and St Tropez Film Festivals.
His fifth feature, Red Dog, released by Roadshow in August 2011 has now earned over $22 million at the box office, making it the eighth highest grossing Australian film of all time. As of 2012, it became the highest selling Australian DVD of all time. Red Dog won both Best Director and Best Film at the 2011 IF Awards and the Best Film Award at the inaugural 2012 ACCTA Awards. In 2013 Kriv directed Kill Me Three Times starring Simon Pegg, Alice Braga, Teresa Palmer, Sullivan Stapleton and Bryan Brown. It was released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures in the U.S. in April and eOne in Australia. Kriv followed up the success of Red Dog with Red Dog: True Blue, which was released by Roadshow in 2016.
For TV, Kriv’s credits include Australia Day for Foxtel, which also received a theatrical release and screened at the Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane Film Festivals; the first and second series of Doctor Doctor for Channel 9; A Place To Call Home for Channel 7; The Principal, a four-part Television drama for SBS TV, starring Alex Dimitriades and Aden Young; the feature-length documentary, Why Anzac with Sam Neill for ABC TV; and Hunters for NBC Universal/SyFy Channel/Matchbox Pictures.
Kriv’s recent credits include the reimagining of the seminal film Wake In Fright as a TV series for Channel 10; Uncharted, a feature documentary with Sam Neill for ABC TV that follows the journey of Captain Cook and Right Here: The Go Betweens, the feature documentary about the extraordinary band and their journey; and Jack Irish, for Easy Tiger Productions and ABC TV.
Kriv is currently in post-production on his latest film Danger Close, which tells the epic story of the Battle of Long Tan.
Kriv also continues to work as a director on numerous award-winning television and online advertising campaigns both in Australia and overseas.
RACHEL LANDERS
Rachel Landers is a filmmaker with a PhD in history from the University of Sydney and a post-graduate directing diploma at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Her films have screened at numerous international festivals, been broadcast all over the world and have won and been nominated for a number of awards. Her credits include the feature documentary A Northern Town nominated for the prestigious UK Grierson Innovation award, a United Nations media award and was a finalist for best documentary in the Dendy’s and the Film Critics Circle of Australia. A Northern Town, which Rachel also shot, won an AFI for Best Cinematography and the Premiers Multimedia History Award and was in competition at FIFO. Rachel produced and shot the feature documentary The Snowman selected for competition at IDFA; nominated for an AFI award for Best Feature Documentary and won the Australian Documentary Prize at the Sydney International Film Festival. She also directed the documentary The Inquisition screened on the ABC and France 1 and was in competition at FIFO.
At the end of 2011 Rachel was awarded the NSW Premier’s History Fellowship and appointed Head of Documentary at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. In 2012 she relaunched the AFTRS Documentary Department with a ground-breaking curriculum, offering world-class training in non-fiction filmmaking. During her tenure, she facilitated graduate workshops with Oscar nominees, Joe Berlinger, Marshall Curry and Bob Connelly, Oscar winners Alex Gibney, D.A Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus and worked with the students on a shoot for Sir David Attenborough. She and the graduates also ran the inaugural Pan Pacific Training workshop in Tahiti as part of the FIFO (Festival International Du Film Documentaire Oceanian) for fourteen emerging documentary makers from Vanuatu, PNG, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Islands and French Polynesia. The twenty-three AFTRS Diploma graduates have had their short films screened at 100s of international festivals and twelve have received market development or production finance for their long form documentaries so far.
In addition to working at AFTRS, in 2015 she completed production on the ABC/DVA/Screen Australia documentary Lest We Forget What? for the centenary of World War 1. She published her first non-fiction book Who Bombed the Hilton? With New South Books in 2016 for which she won the 2016 national Nib award for excellence in research in the creation of a literary work. In 2017 the book was nominated for two Davitt Sisters in Crime Awards – best non-fiction and best debut. In 2017/8, her feature film Dingo based on a novella by the children’s author Jackie French and adapted by Reg Cribb was funded for development as part of the Screen Australia Family Film Fund Initiative and by Film Victoria. In 2018 she was appointed as a Professor and head of Media Arts and Production at the University of Technology, Sydney.
KINGSTON ANDERSON
The Australian Directors Guild is a registered industry association representing the interests of film, television and digital media directors, documentary makers and animators throughout Australia.
As the Executive Director of the ADG, Kingston is responsible for the management of one of the main organisations that represent over 650 Australian directors. His responsibilities include policy development, event management and overseeing the different state committees of the Guild. He comes from a theatre and film background working as a theatre director, film and television producer, as well as a consultant for screen organisations across Australia. He was the manager of the Production Liaison Unit of the NSW Film and Television Office for three years and has served on a number of boards, including the Association of Film Commissions International. He produced Aftershocks (SBS), Taxi School (SBS), A Frontier Conversation (NITV) and Kulka (NITV).
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