Rolf De Heer

Rolf de Heer is the director of Ten Canoes which has won numerous awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; the Film Critics’ Circle of Australia Awards Best Film; and Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 2006 Australian Film Institute Awards.

He was born in Heemskerk, Holland, and migrated to Australia with his family in 1959. He spent seven years working for the ABC before gaining entry to Australia’s Film, Television and Radio School, where he studied Producing and Directing.

His first film as writer/director was the children’s picture Tail of a Tiger (1984). He later scored a cult hit with Bad Boy Bubby (1993), which won four AFI awards as well as a Grand Special Jury Prize and International Film Critics Prize at the 1993 Venice Film Festival. His next two films, The Quiet Room (1996) and Dance Me to My Song (1998), were both selected for official competition at Cannes. His subsequent movies have included The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001), featuring Richard Dreyfuss, and The Tracker (2002), starring David Gulpilil and Gary Sweet. In 2003 Rolf de Heer released his 10th film as director, the acclaimed Alexandra’s Project.

Articles

A toxic mix

MemoirIn June, 2006, after we'd returned from the screening of the film Ten Canoes at the Cannes International Film Festival, I rang around Ramingining in remote North Central Arnhem Land to track down my co-director, Peter Djigirr. I wanted to explain...

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