Women Dominate Australian Directors Guild Award Nominations

Women filmmakers have performed exceptionally strongly at the nominations stage of the Australian Director’s Guild Awards.

Sian Davies has three nominations.  For best direction in a TV or SVOD drama series episode for “The Twelve,” for best direction in a TV or SVOD comedy series episode for “Spreadsheet” and for best direction in a children’s TV or SVOD drama series episode for “Surviving Summer.”

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Stef Smith also received nominations in three different categories. She was nominated for best direction of commercial content for “Baroque In Bloom – Australian Brandenburg Orchestra,” for best direction in an online series episode for “It’s Fine, I’m Fine,” and for best direction in an interactive or immersive project for “Moving Portrait Series.”

For the first time ever, women dominate the major feature film categories with five out of the seven directors nominated for best direction in a feature film (budget A$1 million or over) being women and four of the six nominees in the best direction in a debut feature film category also being women.

Nominated for best direction in a feature film (budget A$1 million or over) are Cate Shortland (“Black Widow”), Christine Luby (“The Curious Case of Dolphin Bay”), Claire McCarthy (“The Colour Room”), Justin Kurzel (“Nitram”), Leah Purcell (“The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson”), Sophie Hyde (“Good Luck To You, Leo Grande”) and Thomas M Wright (“The Stranger”).

Purcell is also nominated in the best direction in a debut feature film category alongside Danny Cohen (“Anonymous Club”), Del Kathryn Barton (“Blaze”), JJ Winlove (“June Again”), Philippa Bateman (“Wash My Soul In The River’s Flow”) and Renée Webster (“How to Please a Woman”).

Three directors of the series “Fires” received nominations in the best direction in a TV or SVOD mini-series episode category. They are Ana Kokkinos, Kim Mordaunt and Michael Rymer. Corrie Chen rounds out the nominations in the category for her work on “New Gold Mountain.”

The awards will be held on Dec. 8, 2022, in Sydney.

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