AustLit

Pip Karmel studied Visual Arts in Adelaide, then film direction and editing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Director Scott Hicks invited her to edit his feature, Sebastian and the Sparrow (1989).

She has written and directed award-winning short films and television. These include Anna Who? (1984), an A.T.O.M. Award-winning documentary on anorexia nervosa and bulimia; 'Sex Rules' (1987) a drama for young people dealing with safe sex; 'Hit and Miss', a story of confrontation and resolution in the series Breakthrough ( Film Australia c.1989); Patty (SBS Aboriginal Television Unit c. 1993), addressing the issue of prejudice and discrimination through the eyes of Patty, an Aboriginal student; Fantastic Futures, a recruitment drama for TAFE and 'The Long Ride', a half hour drama for the SBS series Under The Skin which won Best Telefeature at the 1994 AFI Awards.

Karmel won an Oscar nomination for her editing work on the movie Shine, and wrote and directed the film Me Myself I, which made the first major sales at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. She wrote the story as a novel and published it in 2000.

In August 2020, it was announced that Pip Karmel would be scripting the adaptation of Genevieve Gannon's The Mothers.