Jane Campion

Jane Campion (b. 1954) gained degrees in anthropology and painting before attending the Australian Film Television and Radio School in the early 1980s. By 1986 she had won her first Short Film Palme d'Or at Cannes and made her first film for television, Two Friends. Her feature film debut was Sweetie (1989), which won several awards; An Angel at my Table followed. The Piano (1993) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. For it, Campion was the second woman ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and won the AFI award for Best Director; its star, Holly Hunter, won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actress and her young co-star, Anna Paquin, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Campion's next film, The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the novel by Henry James, starred Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich and Barbara Hershey. After several more feature films Campion turned to executive production for the 2006 documentary Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story. Her recent film about Keats, Bright Star (2009) was shown at Cannes. Her current project is a television series, Top of the Lake, starring David Wenham and Holly Hunter.