Australian Directors’ Guild celebrates 40 years

The Australian Directors’ Guild will mark its 40th year in 2021 with an expanded calendar of member events, workshops and awards.

Alaric McAusland, the ADG’s Executive Director, said: “After a year we’d much rather forget, our members are crying out to connect with each other to share their stories and celebrate our craft. A particular focus for us in this our anniversary year is new initiatives to inspire and develop our emerging members by connecting them with our celebrated established members.”

ADG’s first president Gillian Armstrong said: “The ADG is Forty! It’s hard to believe it’s 40 years since a passionate and noisy group of us gathered around my kitchen table to form some sort of guild to protect Australian directors. I am delighted to be part of the upcoming ADG 40 mentoring webinars – First-Hand. So, get your questions ready! I will do my best to hopefully assist and inspire the next generation of director members. We all need each other.”

ADG’s Strategy & Development Executive Ana Tiwary added: “This program will act as a bridge between established ADG members and emerging directors, creating a pathway for knowledge transference and mentoring for the next generation of Australian directors. We are so grateful to all the brilliant directors who are coming on board to generously share their expertise, engage and inspire emerging ADG members.”

The first initiative is ADG-40 ‘First-Hand’. Each Tuesday and Thursday from April 8, the ADG will host 40 short/sharp Zoom ‘mentoring’ sessions in a moderated Q&A format. Each ADG-40 ‘First-Hand’ 60-minute session will be provided free-of-charge to ADG members across Australia with a mix of questions-on-notice and ‘from the floor’ curated to plug emerging members directly into the ADG’s established member knowledge-base and get ‘First-Hand’, real-world guidance on the craft and business of directing and on career progression.

The webinars will be moderated by the ADG’s Strategy & Development Executive Ana Tiwary, with President Samantha Lang introducing the inaugural session mentor – with the ADG’s first president Gillian Armstrong – at 1pm on the 8th April.

ADG-40 ‘First-Hand’ continues the ADG’s work over four decades advocating for improved directors’ rights and recognition, creating better employment opportunities for directors, developing & advancing member careers, celebrating the Director’s craft and shining a light on new storytelling talent.

In addition to Gillian Armstrong, confirmed mentors so far for ADG-40 ‘First-Hand’ include Rachel Perkins, Rolf de Heer, Samantha Lang, Corrie Chen, Emma Freeman, Ben Lawrence, Ana Kokkinos, Tom Zubrycki, Josephine Mackerras, Robert Connolly, Gracie Otto, Garth Davis, Jennifer Peedom, Jub Clerc and Kriv Stenders.