Amiel Courtin-Wilson

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Amiel Courtin-Wilson
Amiel Courtin-Wilson - IFFR 2017.jpg
Amiel Coutin-Wilson at the 2017 International Film Festival Rotterdam
Born1979
Melbourne

Amiel Courtin-Wilson (born 1979)[1] is one of the most prolific, innovative and critically acclaimed Australian filmmakers of his generation, having directed over 20 short films and seven feature films. His debut feature film Hail premiered internationally at Venice Film Festival in 2011. Amiel is also a producer, musician, and visual artist.

Early life[]

Amiel Courtin-Wilson was born and raised in Melbourne.[2] His parents Peter Wilson and Polly Courtin are both artists.[3] He made his first film at age 9, and later attended Elwood College from 1992 - 97. At 17, he won the Longford Nova Award at the 1996 St Kilda Film Festival for his co-directed half-hour documentary ALMOST 18 as part of the ABCTV HOME TRUTHS series. At age 19, Courtin-Wilson wrote, directed and produced his debut feature documentary Chasing Buddha about his aunt Robina Courtin, a Buddhist nun. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2000 and won best documentary at the IF Awards and the Sydney International Film Festival.[4][5]

Career[]

Since the beginning of his career Courtin-Wilson has been involved in the Australian arts, directing work for Opera Australia and Chunky Move contemporary dance company, screening his films at the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of New South Wales and exhibiting as a visual artist.[6] Amiel's co-directed documentary ISLANDS about 2nd generation Samoan Australians won several awards after premiering at the Museum of Natural History in New York and subsequently toured the United States for twelve months in 2002.

While directing several short films that screened at Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) including ADOLESCENT (2003) and ON THE OTHER OCEAN (2006) Amiel also directed music clips for The Avalanches and Beastie Boys’ Mix Master Mike, produced the electronic music series BLENDER with ABC Television and executive produced an acclaimed series of short films by emerging directors around Australia called WHATEVER for SBS Television. He also consistently contributes to national and international film and art magazines and journals and has lectured at universities across Australia as well as overseas. In 2008 Amiel formed a Melbourne-based production entity Flood Projects with an aim to foster collectivist and artist-driven film making practice in Australia.[7]

Amiel’s second feature documentary Bastardy, about an indigenous actor and petty burglar Jack Charles, was released in Australia in 2009 to critical acclaim.[8] After seven years in the making, the film won Best Documentary Jury Prize at the 2009 Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards (FCCA), Best Documentary at the ATOM Awards, was released theatrically to critical acclaim across Australia and was nominated for three Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards (AACTA).

After shooting the observational documentary about prison rehabilitation Until Hell Freezes in 2006 and meeting ex prison inmate and actor Daniel Jones, Amiel and Daniel collaborated to create the short film CICADA that went on to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as part of Directors’ Fortnight in 2009 and win a slew of awards in Australia and internationally.[9]

Courtin-Wilson co-directed the 2013 film 'Ruin' with Michael Cody. Ruin was selected for the Venice Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Prize.[10]

To celebrate the Venice Film Festival’s 70th anniversary, Amiel was selected to represent Australia and commissioned to create Carson a short film for the 70th edition of the Venice Film Festival alongside directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Claire Denis and Monte Hellman as part of the Future Reloaded program which reflected upon the future of cinema.

In 2014 Amiel received the AFTRS Creative Fellowship to research his upcoming feature film An American Time Traveller about iconic free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. Amiel moved to New York and lived with Cecil over the next two years - becoming his carer and archivist while also documenting his day to day life. Also in 2014, Amiel exhibited a new video installation entitled The Death of a King at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney as part of a Yoko Ono retrospective curated by Joel Stern.

In 2015 Amiel received the Byron Kennedy Award at the 4th AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) Awards in Australia in recognition of his commitment to innovation in Australian cinema over the last two decades. In 2018 the Melbourne Cinematheque programmed Amiel’s first retrospective of short and feature length films.

After receiving the Byron Kennedy Award, Amiel went on to direct The Silent Eye (2016), a feature length performance film collaboration with Cecil Taylor and Japanese dancer Min Tanaka commissioned by the Whitney Museum. The Silent Eye had its International Premiere at the Whitney Museum in 2016 and has screened at Rotterdam Film Festival, Cork International Film Festival, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), MCA, Melbourne International Film Festival and continues to tour museums. In the same year, Amiel exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and won the annual Award for Digital Portraiture with the moving image work Charles. Amiel was commissioned by the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2016 to create Breaking Waves, a fifty minute, two channel video installation work about composer Percy Grainger for the Ian Potter Museum of Art, as well as Under The Wire a three channel video work at MUMA featuring Bill Morrison and curated by James Hewison.

Amiel also recently joined BADFAITH a VR collective including video artists Shaun Gladwell, Tony Albert, Luci Schroeder, Daniel Crooks and their first work EXQUISITE CORPSE premiered at MIFF in 2018.

In 2020 Amiel created BURN, a moving image work commissioned by the Australian Art Orchestra's Peter Knight as well as a feature length film “EDEN EDEN EDEN AT 50”. This project was in collaboration with 50 museums and galleries around the world and curated by Musee D’orsay curator Donation Grau as a response to the controversial French author Pierre Guyotat’s banned text EDEN EDEN EDEN.

Amiel’s studio FLOOD PROJECTS upcoming work includes an illustrated biography of renowned Aboriginal actor and activist Jack Charles, two books of photography and drawing and an upcoming album in collaboration with Melbourne artist and musician Peter Ivor Wilson.

Amiel’s feature documentary MAN ON EARTH will be released in 2022 along with Amiel's feature length thermal imaging documentary TRACES about the human body at the moment of death.

Other upcoming projects include BODY MUSIC, an upcoming feature film collaboration with Charlemagne Palestine, a time travel feature film about Cecil Taylor, and Amiel's eagerly anticipated narrative feature film CARNATION and its documentary sister film UNDERWOOD.

As a producer[]

Amiel is passionate about mentoring emerging filmmakers and he executive produced the feature film STRANGE COLOURS directed by Alena Lodkina which had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2017. Amiel is also an Executive Producer on the upcoming feature documentary IMPRESSIONS OF HOME, the narrative feature FRIENDS AND STRANGERS by James Vaughan (the first Australian film to premiere in competition at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2021 and voted in the top 50 films in the world in 2021 by Sight and Sound) and he is also producing WARM BLOOD the first feature film by renowned Californian skate filmmaker Rick Charnoski.

Hail[]

His dramatic feature film debut Hail premiered internationally in competition at the Venice Film Festival (Orrizonti, 2011). The film explores the relationship between ex-prisoner Daniel P Jones and his long term partner Leanne Letch.[11] The film is notable for its expressionistic use of visuals as well as employing a primarily non-professional cast, most of whom – including Daniel and Leanne – feature as themselves. It screened at over thirty festivals around the world including Rotterdam, Istanbul, Karlovy Vary and Munich, winning The Age Critics Award for best Australian feature at the Melbourne International Film Festival. In 2020 The Guardian listed HAIL as one of the top ten Australian films of the last decade.

Visual Artist[]

Amiel is also a visual artist and his public painted installations under the moniker of OXO OVO have been published in World Signs along with the worldwide survey of street art "The Art of Rebellion" (Gingko Press, 2003). His first solo exhibition of ink drawings was at Utopian Slumps Gallery in Melbourne in 2009.

In 2012 Courtin-Wilson collaborated with the Black Lung Theatre Company and a collective of East Timorese musicians and performers in which he directed film sequences that featured in the critically acclaimed East Timorese theatre production Doku Rai.[12]Doku Rai PREMIERED AT Darwin and Adelaide Arts Festivals before being shown at Brisbane Arts Festival the same year.

Amiel's second solo exhibition of drawing, photography and video work THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT was at The Gertrude Contemporary Art Space in 2015 and curated by Emma Crimmings.

Awards and nominations[]

Filmography[]

Feature films[]

  • Ruin (2013) co-writer, co-director, co-producer (with Michael Cody)
  • Hail (2011) writer, director, producer, co-editor

Feature documentary films[]

  • Catch My Disease (2011) director, cinematographer, producer, editor
  • Bastardy (2009) writer, director, producer, cinematographer
  • Chasing Buddha (1999) writer, director, producer

Short films[]

  • Tag (2010)
  • Cicada (2009 short documentary)
  • On the Other Ocean (2006)
  • Adolescent (2003)
  • Stranglefilm (2001)
  • & It’s POLITIkAL (2001 short documentary)
  • Melbourne 2:36AM (2001)
  • Persona in the Home (2001 short documentary)
  • Islands (2000 short documentary)
  • Re:constitution (2000 short documentary)
  • Cosmonaut (1998)
  • Mix Master Mike – Live (1998 music clip)
  • Living with Mental Illness (1998)
  • Avalanches ‘Rolling High’ (1997 music clip)
  • Bubble Choke Squeak (1997)
  • Charlie’s Toy Meets Madeline Moritz (1995)
  • Numb (1995)

References[]

  1. ^ "Profiles- Amiel Courtin Wilson". Rotterdam Film Festival. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  2. ^ "Spotlight on Amiel Courtin-Wilson – Director". Offscreen Magazine. 2 April 2012. Archived from the original on 6 September 2014. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  3. ^ Bunbary, Stephanie (20 May 2009). "From St Kilda to Croisette". Melbourne: The Age. Retrieved 20 September 2012.
  4. ^ "Newsletter 2000 Chasing Buddha". Urban Cinephile. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  5. ^ "Chasing Buddha | Archives | Sundance Institute". History.sundance.org. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  6. ^ Amiel Courtin Wilson. "Solo Exhibition "Trying to Coax a Lion out of my Chest"". Utopian Slumps Gallery, Melbourne. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  7. ^ Body, Alice (13 July 2009). "Amiel Courtin-Wilson: An interview and an open casting call for Hail". The Thousands. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  8. ^ Buckmaster, Luke (22 July 2009). "Bastardy Film Review". Crikey. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
  9. ^ "Quinzaine des Réalisateurs". Quinzaine-realisateurs.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  10. ^ 'Australian film wins prize in Venice', The Age, 8 September 2013 http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/australian-film-wins-prize-in-venice-20130908-2tdnr.html
  11. ^ "Hail – Movie info: cast, reviews, trailer on". Mubi.com. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  12. ^ Power, Liza (11 August 2012). "From the Wild Zone". The Age. Melbourne. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  13. ^ "The Australian Film Institute | Ceremony Winners". Afi.org.au. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  14. ^ "Australian Short Films at Clermont-Ferrand 2010". YouTube. 19 January 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  15. ^ "La Biennale di Venezia – Hail". Labiennale.org. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  16. ^ "A RAGING SUCCESS ACROSS THE BOARD FOR FANTASIA'S SWEET 16th EDITION + FINAL PRIZES ANNOUNCED " Fantasia 2012 News". Fantasiafestival.com. 10 August 2012. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
  17. ^ Hawker, Philippa (17 August 2012). "Critics hail 'a damaged love story' with film prize". The Age. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  18. ^ "Australian Academy Awards Shared by 'Water Diviner' and 'The Babadook'". 29 January 2015.

External links[]

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