Gillian Armstrong  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Gillian Armstrong (born December 18, 1950 in Melbourne, Australia) is an award-winning director of feature films and documentaries.

Career

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Gillian Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. She graduated from Swinburne technical college in 1968 where she studied theatrical costume design and film-making. In 1972 she entered, and later graduated from, the Australian Film and Television School. Three years later she directed two shorts films: The Singer And The Dancer and Smokes and Lollies (1975).

Her feature length film My Brilliant Career (1979), an adaptation of Miles Franklin's novel of the same name, was the first Australian feature length film to be directed by a woman for 46 years. Armstrong received six awards at the 1979 Australian Film Awards, including Best Director. Following the success of My Brilliant Career, which was nominated for an Academy Award in Best Costume Design, Armstrong directed the Australian musical Starstruck (1981).

Since then, Armstrong has specialised in period drama. She achieved her greatest Hollywood success with the 1994 adaptation of Little Women, starring Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, and followed with the films Oscar and Lucinda (1997) and Charlotte Gray (2001).

Filmography

• Death Defying Acts (2008)
• Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst (2005)
• Charlotte Gray (2001)
• Oscar and Lucinda (1997)
• Not Fourteen Again (1996)
• Little Women (1994)
• The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992)
• Fires Within (1991)
• Bingo, Bridesmaids & Braces (1988)
• High Tide (1987)
• Hard to Handle (1986)
• Mrs. Soffel (1984)
• Having a Go (1983)
• Starstruck (1982)
• Fourteen's Good, Eighteen's Better (1980)
• Touch Wood (1980)
• My Brilliant Career (1979)
• The Singer and the Dancer (1977)
• Clean Straw for Nothing (1976)
• Smokes and Lollies (1975)
• Gretel (1973)
• One Hundred a Day (1973)
• Satdee Night (1973)
• Roof Needs Mowing (1971)
• Old Man and Dog (1970)