Lawrence Johnston

Lawrence Johnston is an internationally award-winning Writer/Director/Producer who began his career as a film repairer at 20th Century-Fox.  He is a graduate of the Swinburne Film and Television School in Melbourne.  His first film NIGHT OUT was an Official Selection at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard) and named ‘one of the year’s ten best’ in the New York Village Voice.   His next film ETERNITY won the Los Angeles International Documentary Association Award for Best Feature and Best Cinematography at the 1995 Australian Film Institute Awards for Dion Beebe (CHICAGO, IN THE CUT) and was named ‘one of the year’s ten best’ in WHO Magazine.  His debut feature film LIFE won the FIPRESCI International Critic’s Prize at the 1996 Toronto Film Festival and was nominated for four Australian Film Institute Awards and four Australian Film Critic’s Circle Awards including Best Actor and Best Screenplay. 

His work has been shown in major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and most recently at the Bannf Festival in Brooklyn U.S.A. 
In 2000 he joined the Australian Film Commission as a Project Manager in Film Development for a term of three years and was part of a team of filmakers responsible supporting the development and production of a series of award winning shorts, documentaries and feature films including the Oscar winning HARVIE CRUMPET and the A.F.I Award winning JAPANESE STORY.

He is currently developing a slate of projects including NIGHT and KID SNOWBALL with Producer Lizzette Atkins, THE FAMOUS SPIEGELTENT with Producer Charlotte Seymour, CUBBYLAND with Producer Ian Collie, JACARANDA and THE DREAM OF LOVE with SBS.