Gillian Leahy

Gillian is best known for her essay film, My Life Without Steve, which won Awards for Best Experimental Film (AFI), the Grand Prix and Best Australian Film awards at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and the Best Film, General Category, in the Dendy Awards. It screened nationally and was invited to the Edinburgh Film Festival amongst others. It was the opening night film at the 1991 Insight Women's Film Festival in Canada. She produced and directed Our Park, for SBS TV as part of the National Interest Program. It screened at the Valhalla Cinema for an 8 week season and was voted in the top ten documentaries at the Sydney Film Festival. She is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School (Communication) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and has taught Media Production at UTS for over twenty years. Gillian produced and directed The Chikukwa Project about a permaculture project in Zimbabwe where 7,000 Shona Africans have pulled themselves out of malnutrition and poverty using permaculture farming methods. Gillian's latest film, Baxter and Me (83 mins), screened in the Documentary Competition at the Sydney Film Festival 2016, won an AWGIE award for best documentary script and nominated for Best Directing in a Documentary by the Australian Directors' Guild.