JANE CAMPION Biography - Theater, Opera and Movie personalities

 
 

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JANE CAMPION

Name: Jane Campion                                                                 
Born: 30 April 1954 Wellington, New Zealand                                       
                                                                                   
Jane Campion (born April 30, 1954 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an Academy       
Award-winning film maker. She is one of the most internationally successful New   
Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by       
other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the U.S.   
Campion attended the Australian Film Television and Radio School early in its     
history, where she learned the craft that has resulted in a career that spans     
fourteen films as director, three as producer and eight as writer.                 
                                                                                   
Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film       
Festival and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments (1983) and   
Girls Own Story (1984). Sweetie (1989) was her feature debut, and won             
international awards. Further recognition followed with An Angel at my Table (1990),
an autobiographical and psychological portrayal of the poet Janet Frame.           
International recognition followed with another Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993 for   
The Piano, which won the best director award from the Australian Film Institute   
and an Oscar for best screenplay in 1994. At the 66th Academy Awards she was the   
second woman ever to be nominated best director.                                   
                                                                                   
Campion's work since that time has tended to polarize opinion. The Portrait of a   
Lady (1996), based on the Henry James novel, featured Nicole Kidman, John         
Malkovich, Barbara Hershey and Martin Donovan. Holy Smoke! (1999) teamed Campion   
again with Harvey Keitel, this time with Kate Winslet as the female lead. In the   
Cut (2003), an erotic thriller based on Susanna Moore's bestseller, provided Meg   
Ryan an opportunity to depart from her more familiar onscreen persona.             
                                                                                   
Campion was an executive producer for the 2006 documentary Abduction: The Megumi   
Yokota Story.