Kathryn Millard Writer/Producer/Director 

Kathryn Millard is a writer and filmmaker with a passion for big ideas. Her films are internationally recognised and much awarded. Psychology, mental health, popular fallacies and the afterlife of images are recurring themes in her body of work which spans award-winning feature dramas, documentaries and hybrids. Kathryn’s films have been selected for dozens
of major festivals including Chicago, Sao Paulo, Mill Valley, Philadelphia, Pordenone, Kolkata, Sydney, Melbourne
and Brisbane, screened at Brooklyn Art Museum and on the Sundance Channel.

With a wealth of experience collaborating with actors, Kathryn’s work is acclaimed not only for its striking cinematic
style, but also for its insight into the understories of human behaviour. Her feature Travelling Light (2003) received four Australian Film Institute nominations and won ‘Best Supporting Actress.’ Parklands (1996) which featured Cate Blanchett in her first film, won an Australian Film Institute award for Best Cinematography and a San Francisco ‘Golden Gate’ award for Drama. In recent films (The Bystander Story, Experiment 20, Shock Room, The Boot Cake) Kathryn has carried her distinctive approach to performance into non-fiction and encounters with the real.

Kathryn is Emeritus Professor of Screen at Sydney’s Macquarie University.
Her new book Double Exposure: How Social Psychology Fell in Love with the Movies is published by Rutgers University Press and due out in March 2022.

Select Filmography

Writer/Producer/Director, The Bystander Story, 30 mins, verbatim documentary, Charlie Productions, 2021

Writer/Producer/Director, Experiment 20, 15 mins, verbatim documentary, Charlie Productions, 2018 

Writer/Producer/Director, Shock Room, 74 mins, feature documentary, Charlie Productions, 2015. (World sales: Cat&Doc, France). Winner ‘Best Australian Documentary’ Antenna Documentary Festival.

“A riveting seventy minutes that explores the dark side of human nature…Kathryn Millard’s excellent direction of dramatic re-enactments drew us into the many uncomfortable scenes that put us in a position to ponder – when would we just stand up and say No!” Antenna International Jury 

Writer/Producer/Director, The Boot Cake, feature documentary, Charlie Productions, 74 mins, 2008.

‘Essential viewing…an astonishing testament to the far-reaching influence of silent cinema’, David Robinson, film historian and Chaplin’s biographer.

Writer/Director, Travelling Light, 82 mins, feature drama, Toi-Toi Films, 2003.

Writer/Director, Parklands, 53 mins, short feature, Soft Fruit Films, 1996

‘Millard is more interested in emotional nuance than plot and is expert at getting it.’ 

Lynden Barber, The Australian 

Writer/Producer/Director, Light Years, 47 mins, documentary, Lexicon Films, 1991

A portrait of photographer Olive Cotton…Kathryn Millard’s film mirrors Cotton’s elegant pictures.’ Sydney Morning Herald. 

Writer/Producer/Director, Saigon Doctor, 25 mins, drama-documentary, SBS, 1988