Cinematography student, Murray Lui, becomes the first Torres Strait Islander accepted into AFTRS. Murray, who is from the Kulkulgal nation, is also a graduate of the 1994 National Indigenous TV Training Course run at AFTRS by filmmaker Lester Bostock.
Lui’s extensive career to date includes 60+ credits such as features Top End Wedding and We Are Still Here, TV series The Family Law, Black Comedy and Rosehaven, and feature documentary Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky. He has been awarded by the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) with the 2010 Golden Tripod as well as a NSW and ACT Gold Award and two Bronze Awards.
Ivan Sen becomes the first Aboriginal Bachelor of Arts graduate in directing. An acclaimed multi-disciplinary filmmaker, Sen also produces, writes, composes, edits and is cinematographer on a number of his projects, which span documentary and feature film.
His 2002 feature film debut Beneath Clouds wins the Premiere First Movie Award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and Best Director at the Australian Film Institute Awards. Sen follows this up with the 2005 documentary Yellow Fella and 2011 feature Toomelah, which screen in Un Certain Regard at Cannes Film Festival, while his features Mystery Road and its “spiritual sequel” Goldstone open the 2013 and 2016 Sydney Film Festivals.
Mystery Road is adapted into the award-winning televisions series, which Sen executive produces. In 2023, Sen’s feature Limbo is nominated for a Golden Berlin Bear at Berlin International Film Festival and wins the AACTA Award for Best Indie Film. In 2012, Sen was the recipient of the prestigious Byron Kennedy Award.
An upgrade of the AFTRS website improves the flow of information and for the first time, access to graduate films and biographies are now available through the site, along with FAQs. In December 1999, the site received two million hits in 24 hours, including 9000 email registrations from 42 countries.
The school also begins developing online training courses for the first time, with courses in scriptwriting, documentary and screen studies designed for 2001.39
The AFTRS Honorary degree is established to acknowledge the significant contributions of people to the screen or broadcast industries. The inaugural recipients of the Master of Arts are producer Jan Chapman, cinematographer Don McAlpine ACS and CAAMA co-founder Freda Glynn.
The Master of Arts recipients up until 2023 include: John Maynard, John Clark AM, Anthony Buckley, Ben Gannon, Dr. George Miller, Baz Luhrmann, John Doyle, John Edwards, Darren Dale, Phillip Noyce, and Glenn Daniel. The Doctor of Arts recipients include: Phillip Adams, David White, Lester Bostock, Bridget Ikin, Lynette Wallworth, Mitch Torres, Cherie Romaro, Mandy Walker, Nerida Tyson-Chew, Shirley Barrett, Tony Ayres, and Dot West.
AFTRS Cinematography graduate Andrew Lesnie ASC ACS wins the Academy Award for Best Cinematography on The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and several years later also wins a BAFTA for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
He was the 2002 winner of the ACS Hall of Fame, and was awarded the ACS Cinematographer of the Year for two years running – in 1995 and 1996 – for Temptation of a Monk and Babe. A celebrated cinematographer, Lesnie also lensed on The Hobbit trilogy, King Kong, I Am Legend, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Water Diviner before his sudden passing in April 2015.
The AFTRS graduation film Inja, written and directed by Steve Pasvolsky, and produced by Pasvolsky and Joe Weatherstone, is nominated for Best Short Film, Live Action at the 75th Academy Awards.
To mark the 20th year of Radio at AFTRS, a survey is conducted into radio graduates and finds that 254 students have completed the fulltime radio course across its first 20 years and 88 per cent of them still work in radio or related media.
The 2003 full-time course is now a Graduate Diploma and incorporates new technology including internet streaming and digital studio equipment. Digital broadcasts are still being trialled by the government, and more work on digital radio is integrated into the curriculum.
Ten years later, in 2023, the Graduate Diploma is now the Graduate Diploma in Radio and Podcasting with a fulltime and part-time option.
Research to aid producers
The aim of the Centre for Screen Business (CSB) is to improve the sustainability of businesses by disseminating knowledge, skills, data and ideas. It produces an interview series with producers, screen executives and distributors called The Knowledge, which is published on a cSB microsite.
The cSB also commissions white papers from leading practitioners and researchers, such as film producer Vincent Sheehan’s 2009 white paper on improving access to ongoing revenue; Jennifer Wilson’s white paper on reforming the copyright system, The Digital Deadlock: how clearance and copyright issues are keeping Australian content offline.
The cSB, together with researchers at RMIT University and the media marketing firm Bergent Research, also conduct the first major nationwide survey of Australian content producers, funded by The Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (CII) based at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The preliminary results of this research is published in Issue 2 (Summer) 2010 issue of LUMINA.
Cinematographer Dion Beebe ACS ASC, who was in the 1989 cohort for the Bachelor of Arts (Film & Television) Cinematography course, wins an Academy Award for his work on feature film Memoirs of a Geisha.
Record number awarded
A record 18 AFTRS Radio graduates are recognised at the Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) in October 2006. High profile winners included: 2GB news reader Rowan Barker, who won Best AM News Presenter; 2005 graduate Jessica Hinchliffe, who picked up the Best Music Director award; and 2UE News Director Clinton Maynard, a graduate from 1997, who won the prestigious Brian White Memorial Award (Metropolitan).
It’s not just success in awards: the employment rate of 2004 and 2005 AFTRS Radio graduates is 100%.
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