Michael Bates(VIII)

Bate's history as a filmmaker goes back to working professionally as an animator for studios such as Hanna Barbera in traditional 2D cell animation. In 2001, he spent a year at the Australian Film and Television School workshopping his technique of 'human animation' for his Masters Degree. "I needed that whole year to fully explore, test and workshop; and that was revolutionary. I knew that when I went into the film school I didn't simply just want to make a film, I wanted to explore the technical installation. I knew it would be complex in terms of the way it was going to be shot, the cinematography, execution, process, in terms of the kind of 'look' we were hoping for, I ran a series of workshops where I had a number of actors come in. I then created the short film Famed." Famed went on to win the Sydney Critics Circle Award for Best Animation (2001) and the Kodak-Australia Award for Best Cinematography in a Student Film (2002).

Michael's short film 'The Projectionist' premiered at the 40th New York Film Festival in 2002. It was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2003 Tampere Film Festival (Finland), and went on to win a further ten international awards at festivals in Valladolid (Spain), Los Angeles, Nashville, Melbourne and Sydney, and screen at over seventy film festivals and events worldwide - most recently at a special event at the Julliard School, New York City. In 2016 it will be part of a major film retrospective in Frankfurt, Germany.

Michael holds both a Masters degree in Film and Television, specialising in Directing, from AFTRS, and teaches screen acting and directing. He has presented programs of his work to audiences in Zagreb, Dresden, New York, Telluride, Szolnok (Hungary) and London.

In 2004 he was invited to be an International Judge at the 34th Tampere Film Festival, has been an active member of the pre-selection panel for the Sydney Film Festival, and in 2014 was a guest judge for the ATOM awards in Australia.