This year is gonna be good.
Sydney film festival’s just announced three new names joining its board of members.
Deb Eckersley, the business leader and founder of the Calaur Advisory, will be stepping into the shoes of treasurer while maintaining current positions on the boards of Technology One Limited and Chief Executive Women.
Meanwhile, Madman Entertainment co-founder and CEO Paul Wiegard and ‘Heartbreak High’ star and writer Thomas Weatherall are both joining as Directors.
Madman Entertainment has quite the portfolio and is one of the country’s leading distributors, releasing films like Parasite, Anatomy of a Fall, Nitram and Searching for Sugar Man. All up, they’ve got 35 Oscar-nominated titles to their name.
Thomas Weatherall is of course best known for his role as Malakai Mitchell on Netflix’s Heartbreak High, which will drop its third and final season next week on March 25th.
He developed his first play Blue with the Balnaves Fellowship and ended up touring nationally and internationally with it along with a nomination for the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting.
And he’s only 25, by the way – but hey, no tall poppy syndrome here.
He’s appointed in the director role as part of a broader NSW Government initiative which aims to put young arts leaders in these cultural institution positions.
The three join Chair Darren Dale and fellow Directors Debbie Lee, Amanda Maple-Brown and Penny Smallacombe – they’ll lead the strategic direction of the festival which hits Sydney cinemas between June 3rd and June 14th.
It’ll be the 73rd ever Sydney Film Festival, and Darren Dale says he’s excited to champion the unique role filmmaking has in Sydney’s culture.
