Bill Bennett(I)
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Bill Bennett's career in film spans four decades. As a producer, director and writer he's made seventeen feature films and several documentaries. His work as a feature producer and director has been recognized with two Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Film and Best Director. Bill has been nominated for AFIs a further twelve times. He's also won two Logies for his earlier journalistic and documentary work.
Bill's film career began in 1972 when he dropped out of medical school at Queensland University to pursue a career at the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He spent ten years working as a journalist, then as a producer/director on such programs as Four Corners, This Day Tonight, and the acclaimed documentary series A Big Country.
In 1982 he made his first independent dramatized documentary, screened on the ABC and the BBC. The film won the Sydney Film Festival Award for Best Documentary.
A few years later he made his first feature length film, A Street To Die. Bill received AFI nominations for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The film won Best Picture at the prestigious Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Bill has had two films in Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, (Backlash and Malpractice), four films in the Toronto International Film Festival, his Outback film noir Kiss or Kill screened at the New York Film Festival, and numerous other films have been selected for other major festivals. His films have been distributed by most Hollywood studios. He's had three major international retrospectives of his work: in the US, Germany and India. The New York Museum of Modern Art has also screened his movies. He's won numerous Best Film awards at various international film festivals.
In 2017, Bill wrote and directed and produced a feature length theatrical documentary on intuition, called PGS - Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. PGS screened to acclaim in cinemas across Australia and the US. Two years later he followed that up with another feature length theatrical documentary, this one on fear - called Facing Fear. It too screened to much acclaim in cinemas in Australia and the US. These are the first two in a planned series of four, which Bill is calling his "Journey" films. The third is on Hope, the fourth is on Death.
In 2024, Australian distributor Maslow Entertainment released Bill's seventeenth feature film, The Way, My Way. Within 6 weeks of release it had become the second highest grossing Australian independent film of the year. Based on Bill's best selling memoir of the same title, the film tells the story of his walking the famed pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago some ten years earlier.
The film will be released theatrically in the US and Europe in the Spring of 2025.
Bill's film career began in 1972 when he dropped out of medical school at Queensland University to pursue a career at the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He spent ten years working as a journalist, then as a producer/director on such programs as Four Corners, This Day Tonight, and the acclaimed documentary series A Big Country.
In 1982 he made his first independent dramatized documentary, screened on the ABC and the BBC. The film won the Sydney Film Festival Award for Best Documentary.
A few years later he made his first feature length film, A Street To Die. Bill received AFI nominations for Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The film won Best Picture at the prestigious Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Bill has had two films in Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, (Backlash and Malpractice), four films in the Toronto International Film Festival, his Outback film noir Kiss or Kill screened at the New York Film Festival, and numerous other films have been selected for other major festivals. His films have been distributed by most Hollywood studios. He's had three major international retrospectives of his work: in the US, Germany and India. The New York Museum of Modern Art has also screened his movies. He's won numerous Best Film awards at various international film festivals.
In 2017, Bill wrote and directed and produced a feature length theatrical documentary on intuition, called PGS - Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. PGS screened to acclaim in cinemas across Australia and the US. Two years later he followed that up with another feature length theatrical documentary, this one on fear - called Facing Fear. It too screened to much acclaim in cinemas in Australia and the US. These are the first two in a planned series of four, which Bill is calling his "Journey" films. The third is on Hope, the fourth is on Death.
In 2024, Australian distributor Maslow Entertainment released Bill's seventeenth feature film, The Way, My Way. Within 6 weeks of release it had become the second highest grossing Australian independent film of the year. Based on Bill's best selling memoir of the same title, the film tells the story of his walking the famed pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago some ten years earlier.
The film will be released theatrically in the US and Europe in the Spring of 2025.
