We are thrilled to announce that Australia’s best known film critic, David Stratton, is the patron of the Queensland Film Festival.
As QFF patron Stratton lends the Festival his strong endorsement. Festival-goers will also benefit from his critical acumen upon release of the Festival’s full program in June. Here Stratton will offer his personal recommendations and help put QFF’s contribution in context.
While he is a household name for his film criticism in print (The Australian) and especially on television with partner Margaret Pomeranz (The Movie Show 1986–2004; At the Movies 2004–2014), Stratton strongly identifies with another aspect of his professional life: his work as a curator and historian.
It was in this capacity that Stratton first influenced film culture in Queensland. In 1966—his first year as director of the Sydney Film Festival—he played an important part in helping to establish the Brisbane Film Festival.
“In some way, Brisbane’s international film festival has been a part of my year ever since. I always looked forward to travelling up for BIFF,” Stratton says.
“Unbelievably, next year it will be 50 years since that first Brisbane Film Festival, and I’m very pleased to support QFF in reintroducing this kind of film festival for local audiences”, he adds.
Stratton was the director of the Sydney Film Festival from 1966–1983. Stratton made SFF Australia’s premiere film festival during his tenure and took a strong stand against film censorship. He currently teaches—over the span of 10 years—the course “A History of World Cinema” at Sydney University. The second of these 10-year courses began in 2009 and is scheduled to conclude in 2018.
With a half-century relationship to Brisbane’s film culture and an unparalleled commitment to curating the world’s most important cinema, QFF could have no more appropriate patron than David Stratton.
Image: Creative Commons