Gillian Armstrong

Gillian May Armstrong (born 18 December 1950) is an Australian feature film and documentary director, best known for My Brilliant Career, Little Women, The Last Days of Chez Nous, and Mrs. Soffel. She is a Member of the Order of Australia. She has won multiple awards including an AFI Best Director Award, and has been nominated for numerous other awards including a Palme D'Or and two Golden Bear Awards. She has received multiple Honorary Doctorates including an Honorary Doctor of Letter Degree from University of Sydney, and an Honorary Doctorate from Swinburne University of Technology. Early life Armstrong was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 18 December 1950. She went to a local high school, Vermont High School (now Vermont Secondary College), and was the middle child of a local real estate agent father and a primary school teacher mother who gave up work to have a family. Armstrong stated in The Australian that her parents were always very supportive of their hopes and dreams, which was not always the way it was for women in the 1960s and 70s. Her father was a frustrated photographer who wasn't allowed to follow his dreams professionally, yet always practised as an amateur. Armstrong reminisces of how she grew up in a dark room, learning all about photography. When she first decided to go to art school, Armstrong didn't have a very firm grasp on what she wanted to do. Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. Armstrong was a technical theatre student at Swinburne Technical College while paying her tuition by working as a waitress. Originally, she attended school to become a theatrical set designer but the school that she attended also offered a film course. After she took it she was enamored by the great names of cinema and decided to enter the film industry. Then she won a scholarship to join the first 12 students at the country's first and only film school, the Australian Film and Television School. While she was in school, the Australian film industry was non existent, and she recalls how weird the accent sounded in new films, because it wasn't American, it was Australian. She attended Swinburne Technical College with the intention of becoming a theatre costume designer, but it was here she became increasingly interested in film. During this time, she was exposed to a range of artistic films that differentiated from the commercial cinema and television she was used to.