Allanah Zitserman

Allanah Zitserman is an award winning scriptwriter and film producer (Russian Doll, Horseplay, Ladies In Black), and founder of the Dungog Film Festival. Zitserman is also the director of Lumila Films.[1][2]

Allanah Zitserman on the red carpet at Cinefest Oz 2018

Education

Zitserman graduated from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 1998 with a Bachelor of Business and Communications.

Career

Zitserman started the themed club Barbarella in the late 1990s when she was 18, only for it to become one of Sydney's popular nightspots at the time. At 21 she set up Screen Artists, a film development and production company with business and personal partner Stavros Kazantzidis.

Her screen career started soon after graduating from UTS with a Bachelor of Business in 1998, when she took a production job on Strange Planet (1999) starring Naomi Watts, and fell in love with filmmaking. A year later, she produced and penned her debut feature film Russian Doll (2000) starring Hugo Weaving (The Matrix). It went on to earn her an Australian Film Institute (now AACTA[3]) Award for Best Original Screenplay.[4] She wrote and produced Horseplay and event managed international functions at Marrakech and Cannes Film Festivals.[5] She followed this by scripting and producing the black comedy Horseplay (2003) starring Abbie Cornish (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).

Allanah then worked in script development for a few years in London, before returning to Australia in 2007. The same year, driven by her passion for promoting and celebrating Australian screen content, she founded the Dungog Film Festival - winner of Inside Film’s 2012 Best Film Festival Award.

Zitserman returned to Australia in 2005, committing her time to both script development and spearheading Dungog Film Festival.[6] She was awarded the Australian Film Commission's Writer's Fellowship in 2006.[7] In 2007 Zitserman became one of the only two women to own a distribution company in Australia, the Australian Film Syndicate (AFS).[8]

From 2008 until 2012, Allanah created the script development program "In The Raw", which saw many of its projects produced including Last Cab to Darwin, Sleeping Beauty, Strangerland starring Nicole Kidman and Little Death. During this time, she also founded a film distribution company that championed local independent films.

In 2017 Zitserman started production on the feature film, Ladies in Black,[9] directed by Bruce Beresford.[10][11] The film is released worldwide through Sony Pictures with Australia kicking off 20 September 2018.[12] It has been critically acclaimed by Garry Maddox as a "love letter to Sydney".[13]

Personal life

Zitersman arrived in Australia in 1980 with her family, as a Russian refugee.

She lives with filmmaker Stavros Kazantzidis and they have two daughters together.

Filmography
  • Russian Doll (2001)
  • Horseplay (2003)
  • Ladies in Black (2018)[14]

References
  1. https://lumila.com.au/
  2. "From Cannes to Dungog". jewishnews.net.au. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  3. "AACTA Awards - Overview". 2018.
  4. "2000 AFI Best Original Screenplay - Russian Doll". You Tube.
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20110427103821/http://en.festivalmarrakech.info/
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-03-04. Retrieved 2011-03-28.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. "The Australian Film Commission" (PDF). afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  8. "The Australian Film Syndicate's Allanah Zitserman on The Combination's axing". abc.net.au. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  9. Windsor, Harry (21 March 2017). "Bruce Beresford to shoot 'Ladies in Black' in Sydney". Retrieved 10 December 2017.
  10. https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2017/03-22-ladies-in-black
  11. https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2017/10-04-ladies-in-black-cast-announced
  12. "Bruce Beresford's 'Ladies in Black' holds a mirror to multicultural Australia". IF Magazine. 18 Apr 2018. Retrieved 20 Aug 2018.
  13. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/ladies-in-black-a-love-letter-to-sydney-20180828-p500cm.html
  14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VD3xLf7ugQ
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