Born: Established: 1961 ;
AustLit
BiographyHistory
Bio changes summary
Script-writer and director.
Barrett was trained at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, at which she wrote and directed the short film Cherith (1987): the film (distributed on VHS by the Australian Film Institute) won her two awards, including an AFI Award for Best Short Fiction Film. Around the same time, Barrett was involved with the Australian Children's Television Foundation program Kaboodle, which aimed to give industry assistance to up-and-coming television writers and directors: Barrett contributed the ten-minute fantasy film 'The Kobold and Potato' (directed by Karin Altmann) to episode nine of series 1.
For the first few years of the 1990s, Barrett worked primarily as a director, directing episodes of such television programs as Boys from the Bush (1991), A Country Practice (1992-1993), Heartbreak High (1994), and Police Rescue (1995).
In 1996, she wrote and directed Love Serenade, which won her the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as attracting two AFI Award nominations (for Best Achievement in Costume Design and Best Achievement in Production Design): at the Valladolid International Film Festival, Barrett won Best New Director for the film, and was nominated for the Golden Spike. Barrett followed this with the feature films Walk the Talk (2000) and South Solitary (2010). She also wrote the scripts for the short film Steamboat (2009), directed by C.J. Johnson, and for one of the four parts of anthology series Before the Rain (2010), produced by the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (the other three parts were written by Alice Bell, Christopher Lee, and Judy Morris, and the program was directed by Craig Boreham, Nick Clifford, Stephen de Villiers, and C.J. Johnson).
At the same time, Barrett continued to work in television, directing episodes of Love My Way (2006-2007) (for which she won a 2006 AFI Award for Best Direction in Television, for her work on episode 11), Packed to the Rafters (2011), Wild Boys (2011), Offspring (2010-2012), and, most recently, House Husbands (2012).
Most Referenced Works
Awards for Works
-
y
The Bus on Thursday
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2018
14150056
2018
single work
novel
I't wasn't just the bad break-up that caused Eleanor's life to unravel. It was the cancer. And the demons that came with it. Freshly single and thoroughly traumatised from the ordeals of breast cancer, Eleanor Mellett starts a new job as a teacher in a remote mountain hamlet. It's certainly peaceful enough, almost too peaceful. But what's become of the previous teacher, the saintly Miss Barker, who has disappeared abruptly under mysterious circumstances? And what's with all those locks on the door? And what the hell is that bus doing idling outside her house late, late at night?
'When the local priest offers to exorcise Eleanor of her 'cancer demon', she probably should have declined. Because that's when all her troubles start in earnest. That's when the visitors come a-knocking.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
- 2018 shortlisted Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction — Horror Division — Novel
-
y
Rush Oh!
Sydney
:
Pan Macmillan Australia
,
2015
8775180
2015
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 1 units)
'When the eldest daughter of a whaling family in Eden, New South Wales, sets out to chronicle the particularly difficult season of 1908, the story she tells is poignant and hilarious, filled with drama and misadventure.
Swinging from her own hopes and disappointments, both domestic and romantic, to the challenges that beset their tiny whaling operation, Mary's tale is entirely relatable despite the hundred-odd years that separate her world from ours.
Chronicling her family's struggle to survive the season and her own attempts to navigate an all-consuming crush on an itinerant whaleman with a murky past, Rush Oh! is also a celebration of an extraordinary episode in Australian history when a family of whalers formed a fond, unique allegiance with a pod of Killer whales - and in particular, a Killer whale named Tom.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
- 2016 shortlisted Kibble Literary Awards — Nita May Dobbie Award
- 2016 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) — The Matt Richell Award for New Writer
- 2016 longlisted Women's Prize for Fiction (UK) — Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
- 2016 shortlisted Indie Awards — Debut Fiction
-
form
y
South Solitary
( dir. Shirley Barrett
)
Australia
:
Macgowan and Beneficiary Films
Omnilab Media
,
2010
Z1689710
2010
single work
film/TV
'Meredith, 30 and unmarried, arrives at a remote lighthouse island with her uncle, the new head keeper. Bad weather and misadventure leave her marooned with only the sullen and withdrawn assistant keeper, Fleet, for companionship. A tender, faltering courtship ensues.'
Source: Screen Australia.