Directed by Gillian Armstrong • 1979 • Australia
Starring Judy Davis, Sam Neill
For her award-winning breakthrough film, director Gillian Armstrong drew on teenage author Miles Franklin’s novel, a celebrated turn-of-the-twentieth-century Australian coming-of-age story, to brashly upend the conventions of period romance. Headstrong young Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis, in a star-making performance), bemoans her stifling life in the backcountry, where her writerly ambitions receive little encouragement, and craves independence above all else. When a handsome landowner (Sam Neill), disarmed by her unruly charms, begins to court her, Sybylla must decide whether she can reconcile the prospect of marriage with the illustrious life’s work she has imagined for herself. Suffused with generous humor and a youthful appetite for experience, MY BRILLIANT CAREER is a luminous portrait of an ardently free spirit.
Directed by Bruce Beresford • 1980 • Australia
Starring Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters
At the turn of the twentieth century, three Australian army lieutenants are court-martialed for alleged war crimes committed while fighting in South Africa. With no time to prepare, an Australian ...
Directed by Peter Weir • 1982 • Australia, United States
Starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt
Indonesia, 1965. Revolution is in the air. Foreign journalists covering the unrest are kept at arm’s length by the wary Sukarno government. With the help of local Billy Kwan (Linda Hunt) an...
