After Hours
Director: Jane Campion
Script: Jane Campion
Director of Photography: Laurie Mclnnes
Producer: Janet Bell
Musician: Alex Provas
Editing: Annabelle Sheehan
Sound: Averill Nicholls
Cast: Danielle Pearce, Don Reid, Anna Maria
Australia / Fiction / 29’ / Digital Betacam / Color / 1984
A sensitive portrayal of a young office worker alleges sexual abuse by her employer. She loses her job as a result of her claims. In this scenario, both the fellow workers and the boyfriend of the young girl fail to understand her situation, somehow blaming her for what happened. The investigator for the case has a difficult task in extracting evidence from people associated with the manager and is left with many unanswered questions.
CV
Jane Campion was born into a successful, creative family in Wellington, New Zealand—her parents were theatrical innovators who founded that country’s first professional theatre company, The New Zealand Players. Campion studied at Victoria University in Wellington, completing a BA in Anthropology in 1975, before crossing the Tasman Sea to study painting at the Sydney College of the Arts. Campion began making films in the early 1980s, the first of which, Peel (1982), won the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival. From this early success Campion completed two more AFI award-winning shorts—1983’s Passionless Moments and A Girl’s Own Story (1984).
Her feature debut, Sweetie (1989) competed for the Palme d’Or at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film and the AFI Award for Best Original Screenplay. An Angel at My Table (1990) won several awards, both in New Zealand and internationally, including the Grand Special Jury prize at the Venice Biennale and the FIPRESCI prize at Toronto, which firmly put Campion on the international map.
Her most highly-regarded film, The Piano (1993) was awarded the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and won three Oscars, including Best Screenplay. The Portrait of a Lady closed the Venice Film Festival in 1996, was nominated for two Academy Awards and garnered the Francesco Pasinetti Award for Best Film by the National Union of Film Journalists. Jane co-wrote with her sister Anna, and directed, Holy Smoke and directed and co-wrote, with Susanna Moore, In the Cut. The film opened the London Film Festival. Jane wrote and directed Bright Star which screened in Official Competition in Cannes in 2009.
In 2013 Jane was awarded the Carosse D'or Prize by Societe de Realisateurs de Film. In the same year, she was the recipient of an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award. At the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, she was head of the jury for the main competition section. In 2015, Campion played an essential role in establishing an annual scholarship programme for female directors through the New Zealand Film Commission. Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to film in the Queen’s 2016 New Year Honours.