The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 46

I I mi i IF flflfFfn) MANNING her pocket she had exactly $2 in her bank account. "I've worked for two years for peanuts on this film," she said. "I don't mind. I loved it, but I'm not making money." But making a film like My Brilliant Career is too important to her to think of money. "I would have done it for 10 cents," she said.

But now that it's an international success, Gillian Armstrong's days of poverty are clearly behind her. who gave her the breaks are now working for her. But she's been living from film to film. "People think when you get a grant for $20,000 for a film that you're sitting in clover," she said. "When I got that for Singer and Dancer I personally didn't get a cent.

I survived off other money I'd saved, work from another film and, for a time, the dole." When Miss Armstrong got back from Cannes this year the accolades of the world's critics in Gillian Armstrong fame but no fortune. By the time her movie, My Brilliant Career, is shown in her home town of Sydney, on October 19, Gillian Armstrong will have had her fill of public acclaim. She's just been flown to New York at the expense of the New York Film Festival to be in at the opening of My Brilliant Career there. The film had a press preview on Thursday and the New York public saw it for the first time yesterday. The raves have already begun.

Earlier this year. Miss Armstrong was the toast of international critics, directors and producers when the film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in France. It's quite an experience for a 29-year-old director who left the Film and Television School in Sydney only five years ago. My Brilliant Career, from the novel by Australian author Miles Franklin, traces the delights and agonies of a young country woman as she tries to reconcile romance with her desire for independence and a career. Statement It's Miss Armstrong's first feature film.

Two years ago she was producing documentaries. Four years ago she produced a one-hour drama called The Singer and the Dancer. Just six years ago she was at the Film and TV School. She says of My Brilliant Career: "I wanted to make the statement that the heroine is a full woman who can develop her talents and have a career. "I didn't want to reinforce the old stereotypes that a woman who has a career does so only because she can't get a man." It's a long way from the days in 1970 when fresh-faced Gillian and other students at Melbourne's Swinburne Institute of Technology sneaked inside the ABC.

television studios late at night to use editing machines their college didn't have. Or the time the year later when she coaxed the Heinz company into contributing 36 gallons of baked beans for an "arty" bath scene in a madcap film called Old Man and the Dog. "We did the scene at home," says Gillian, "and when we got the two people out of the baked bean bath my father wondered what they'd think at the sewerage Phone calls, letter writing and guerilla note sending finally got her the breaks she needed first on a film being shot at Narrabeen, later as an editor in a production house. Many of the people $3 OFF 100 cotton in traditional Indian Hand woven 15A 311-313 Church (Opposite David Jones) Wallaceway Orchard Road. By PETER plant with 36 gallons of beans coming by." She says she was never a mad film buff while at school.

"I lived in the outer suburbs of it was quite a trip to go to the movies." But an interest in acting in primary school and a father who involved her in amateur photography led to seven years involvement in a speech and drama course while at school. Surprised Sitting in the kitchen of Gillian Armstrong's cottage in Rozelle washed wood furniture, yellow staircase, stuffed parrot hanging from the ceiling, cane blinds, plants everywhere, a photo of a country fence slowly collapsing into paddock grass the experiences of 10 years ago seem a lifetime away. Miss Armstrong is quietly surprised at her own ability to leap from small-budget, short films into directing a feature film which has been bought around the world. But she's not shocked or self-effacing either "At first I felt the film was too big for me and that I would be better off if I did a few low-budget features first," she said. "But as time passed 1 became very involved with the and was determined to follow it through to a finished product." Clearly, others in her brilliant career have recognised her talents, too.

"When I left tech I came to Sydney and tried desperately to get into film as anything, continuity girl, anything," she said. "I used to waitress and I'd send off notes in texta on tatty brown paper to film production companies saying: 'Help, am lost among the dim "I got one letter back from one company that said: 'Sorry no job but loved the paper'." LIVING 634 7594 Telephone 6358446. Telephone 4122297. szfts Beautiful cane CHrHriO 'ifei 4" teaSsT GfctfKi! diMEf cmrtiiis Practical beauty with an exotic touch Reduced ONLY $9.99 All the Star Signs $299- JUST $1.25 Single bed size, usually $3.99 Double bed size, NOW $5.99 designs. Fantastic value brew LOOK 250gm tin $2.99 The ever popular 125gm tin $1.85 IMPORT OF THE MONTH Pine handles stainless steel blades GAZEBO Phone (02) Today's fashion at a Costless Price-Single Bed size $39.99 Double Bed size $59.99 Queen Bed size $65.50 from $1.65 Stands, Shelves, Racks etc.

turnip tolii MATCHSTICK TORTOISESHELL TOTEM 180cm drop. 180cm drop Mixed matchstick 7.99 $10.50 $12.99 $15.50 $17.99 $20.50 $22.99 tortoiseshell slat 180cm drop 90cm 8.99 120cm $11.99 150cm $14.99 180cm $17.99 210cm $20.99 240cm $23.99 60cm 4.99 90cm 5.99 120cm 7.99 150cm 9.99 180cm $11.99 210cm $12.50 240cm $14.99 300cm $17.99 Shop the 90cm 120cm 150cm 180cm 210cm 240cm 300cm Some 240cm CABANA Tortoiseshell matchstick 180cm drop 90cm $10.99 120cm $14.99 180cm $22.99 210cm $26.99 240cm $30.99 blinds. sold. drop in all types of world tor the exotic and unusual mrnxsmmmsmm i mm mmm mmiMmrm Special prices for 2 weeks or until Phone or write for free brochure and price COLONIAL GAZEBO COMPANY 37 Middleton Ave. Castle HHI, 21 54.

Ph. (02) 634 7594 j.iiff.i mi i iii iMiiii r' naM 49 THE SUN-HERALD, 49.