Gillian Armstrong

Gillian Armstrong (born December 18, 1950, Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian film director who is known for her carefully observed strong female characters. Many of her movies are historical dramas.

Armstrong grew up near Melbourne and studied art and film at Swinburne Technical College (now Swinburne University of Technology). She made a few short films and in 1973 was one of the first 12 students to be admitted to the Film and Television School (now the Australian Film Television and Radio School). After two more well-received short films, she directed a 25-minute documentary examining the lives of three working-class teenage girls, Smokes & Lollies (1976). That began a series that continued with Fourteen’s Good, Eighteen’s Better (1981), Bingo, Bridesmaids and Braces (1988), Not Fourteen Again (1996), and Love, Lust & Lies (2010).

Armstrong received her big break in the late 1970s when producer Margaret Fink asked her to direct My Brilliant Career (1979), an adaptation of the novel by Miles Franklin. The movie, about a young woman aspiring to be a writer in Victorian-era Australia, garnered international acclaim and won six Australian Film Institute awards, including for best picture and best director. It launched the careers of both Armstrong and its lead actress, Judy Davis. In her next movie, Starstruck (1982), Armstrong told the story of a young woman hoping to become a pop star in contemporary Sydney.

Armstrong returned to the turn of the 20th century for Mrs. Soffel (1984), an American crime movie based on a true story and starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. High Tide (1987) featured Davis as a backup singer for an Elvis Presley impersonator.; when she loses her job in a small coastal town, she accidentally reconnects with her teenage daughter. Fires Within (1991) and The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992) garnered little notice, but Armstrong achieved another hit with her take on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women (1994), starring Winona Ryder, Christian Bale, and Susan Sarandon. Oscar and Lucinda (1997), set in mid-19th-century Australia and based on a novel by Peter Carey, was also well received. Her later movies included the World War II drama Charlotte Gray (2001), which starred Cate Blanchett, and Death Defying Acts (2007), a fable about Harry Houdini. Women He’s Undressed (2015) was a documentary on Australian-born costume designer Orry-Kelly.