The Team

Rosie Jones

Writer, Director and Co-producer

Rosie is an award-winning documentary screenwriter, director and editor. This series is based on many years of research and her most recent feature documentary, The Family, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2016 and was released internationally. The Family has screened widely including on BBC Storyville and STARZ in the USA and won Best Feature Documentary with the Film Critics Circle of Australia and Best Documentary Director at the inaugural Ozflix Awards.

Her other films as writer/director include the feature documentary The Triangle Wars, about an epic struggle over development on an iconic Australian foreshore (Best Australian Documentary, Antenna Documentary Festival, 2011). Previous documentaries include Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery (an investigation of Australia’s biggest mass UFO sighting), Obsessed with Walking (an exploration of psychogeography with Booker-nominated writer Will Self) Holy Rollers (a wry look at Christian pilgrimage amid the tensions of Israel) and Visions of Yankalilla, about an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a church in South Australia.

She has also edited numerous documentaries commissioned by Australian and international broadcasters.

Anna Grieve

Producer

Anna has many years experience as an award-winning independent producer and was Executive Producer at Film Australia. Her productions cover all genres of documentary with a particular fascination with powerful emotional stories of investigative history.

She produced the feature documentary The Family. Extensive production credits include large-scale dramatised documentaries films with writer/director Peter Butt – I, Spry, The Prime Minister is Missing, Silent Storm and the Logie-award-winner Who Killed Dr Bogle & Mrs Chandler? Since 2008, she has co-produced Big Stories Small Towns, a participatory media project gathering local stories for a global audience and winner of the best community interactive at SXSW 2012.

Credits as Executive Producer include Sundance finalist Dhakiyarr vs the King and MobiDocs an award-winning anthology series with the NFB in Canada.

She recently produced the Indigenous feature documentary Croker Island Exodus – finalist in the Deadly Awards, Foxtel Prize and screened at Sydney and MIFF Festivals, FIFO and Real Screen Canada.

In 2015 she co-produced Death or Liberty, an Irish–Australian feature documentary and series – a musical journey into the dramatic and heroic lives of convict rebels.

Jaems Grant ACS

Cinematographer
Jaems started his career shooting documentaries and short films and quickly moved on to TVC, TV drama and feature films. He was accredited in 1989 by the Australian Cinematographers Society and has won various awards at international festivals. Jaems has won over thirty-five ACS Awards with three National ACS Golden Tripods being awarded for Love Letters from a War in 2004, Penicillin in 2007 and in 2013 for Australia on Trial. His feature and television drama credits include Head On, Stingers, The Time of Our Lives, Strange Fits of Passion, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Rush and Nowhere Boys: The Book of Shadows. Acclaimed documentaries shot by Jaems include Revealing Gallipoli, The First Fagin, The Floating Brothel, Breaker Morant: The Retrial and Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tail.

Amanda Brown

Composer
Amanda composed the music for the feature documentary The Family and was nominated for an AACTA award. She has been composing music for stage and screen since graduating from AFTRS in 1999. She has written scores for feature films UnIndian, Son of a Lion, Floodhouse, Preservation and Look Both Ways, and co-composed music for Red Obsession and The Kings of Mykonos. She has a long list of television music credits and has won several industry awards for her film music. Amanda is a multi-instrumentalist and was a member of The Go-Betweens, with whom she recorded two albums and toured the world. She has recorded and performed with artists including R.E.M., silverchair, The Vines, The Church, David Bridie, The Apartments and Toni Collette. Amanda is a writer-director board member and ambassador for APRA AMCOS.

Bill Murphy ASE

Editor
Bill has edited numerous documentaries and feature films both in Australia and overseas. His credits include the feature Romper Stomper and Academy Award animation winner Mary & Max. Other credits include Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema, The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, Big Name No Blanket (documentary), Croker Island Exodus (documentary) and Chasing Buddha (documentary).

Mark Tarpey

Sound Recordist
Mark has been a sound recordist for over two decades, with twelve of those years at the ABC in Melbourne. He has worked in all areas of film and TV, from natural history to drama, however his true passion and experience lies in documentaries with over forty projects and multiple AFI nominations and awards to his credit. Films worked on include Call Me Dad, Nature, Persons of Interest, Race to London, Visions of Yankalilla, Westall ’66 and Vietnam Nurses.

Livia Ruzic

Sound Design
Livia has worked in sound for over thirty years. She has been a dialogue editor, FX editor or sound designer on close to 200 productions – from feature films to documentaries, shorts, animations, television productions and dance soundscapes. She has been part of sound teams that have been awarded over a dozen awards including nine AFI/AACTA awards, a few ASSG awards and a BAFTA. Some of the productions she has been involved with include features Balibo, Muriel’s Wedding, Shine and Greencard ; documentaries The Triangle Wars, Ecco Homo, In Bob We Trust, Dr Sarmast’s Music School, and Coniston; animations Small Treasures, dirtgirlworld and Good Grief; and television productions The Secret River, It’s A Date and Utopia.

Keith Thomas

Sound Design
Keith has work in audio post for the past twenty-five years as a sound designer, editor, mixer and a sound post supervisor on all types of projects long and short. A number of the projects he has worked on have received AFI/AACTA nominations including two awards and a number of ASSG Awards. He was also awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen’s New Year Honours List for his services to Australian society and Australian film production. Some of the projects Keith has worked on are the documentaries Autoluminescent, The Triangle Wars, Ecco Homo, In Bob We Trust, Dr Sarmast’s Music School, Coniston, Then The Wind Changed and Sporting Nation. Also TV shows Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, Ja’mie: Private School Girl, Jonah from Tonga, Utopia, It’s a Date, The Secret River, Better Man and many more.

Dale Cochrane and John Mantovani

Aerial Cinematography
Dale and John form a core part of the team at Raven Air, an aerial cinematography company that services the production industry. They collaborated closely with Rosie Jones and Anna Grieve to use the aerials to create a particular visual emotion that would match the dark and unsettling world of The Cult of The Family. Their challenge was how to use the surrounding landscapes and environments of the story to form this visual fabric. Fortunately from the epic sweep of Lake Eildon to Queen’s College to the mountain ash forests of the Dandenong Ranges, there were some extraordinary visuals to draw on.