Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has been a regular visitor to the AFI Research Collection in the past couple of months, primarily working on her project Hidden in Plain Sight: Australian Women’s Film Criticism, 1980 – 1999. This project (for which Alexandra received the 2017 AFI Research Collection Fellowship Award) examines the intersection between women’s film criticism and women’s filmmaking practices in Australia during the 1980s and 1990s. The fruits of Alexandra’s labour on her project are starting to be shown as she’s published several articles that can be viewed online for free. These articles either relate directly to her Fellowship project or are based upon the research and information she found whilst here at the AFI Research Collection.
– “Girls on Film: Growing Up with Cinema Papers” at Senses of Cinema sensesofcinema.com/2017/pioneering-australian-women/cinema-papers-magazine/ –
Ann Turner profile for the Alliance of Women Film Journalists: http://awfj.org/blog/2017/07/15/in-the-muck-of-it-the-films-of-ann-turner-profile-by-alexandra-heller-nicholas/
– Laurie McInnes’ Broken Highway essay at Senses of CInema (co-written with Josh Nelson) http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/pioneering-australian-women/broken-highway/
– Claudia Karvan early career profile at Senses of Cinema: http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/pioneering-australian-women/claudia-karvan/
– Susan Lambert’s On Guard essay at Senses of Cinema: http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/pioneering-australian-women/on-guard-1984/
Generation Starstruck and Australian Women filmmakers at the Melbourne International Film Festival
Alexandra’s interest in Australian women’s filmmaking has inspired her to publish a website Generation Starstruck: Australian Women’s Filmmaking 1980-1999. Her time at the AFI Research Collection was very useful in compiling the site. The Generation Starstruck website informed her co-curatorial role for the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival special programme Pioneering Women. The programme is described as ‘a selection of…Australian should-be classics directed by women and made in the 1980s and early 1990s’.
