Janet Merewether is a film-maker, digital media artist and academic, currently lecturing at Macquarie University, Sydney. In 2008 she completed a doctoral research degree (DCA) at University of Technology, Sydney on the subject of innovative design and performance in hybrid documentary. Merewether founded Go Girl Productions in 1995 and Screen Culture Pty Limited in 2007 for the production of creative documentaries, films and digital media.
Merewether has worked in film, video and digital media, directing documentaries, short films, experimental film and digital art, as well as designing feature film title sequences, including The Boys. Her video works include Cheap Blonde [1998], Making out In Japan [1996] and Taking Her for A Spin [1997]. Many of Merewether’s short works combine a number of formats including 35mm,16mm, Super 8 film, 1” videotape, Video 8, Betacam SP, Betacam Digital, HD Digital, and include Contemporary Case Studies [2001], Short Before The Movie [2003] and Knitface [2004].
The experimental media work Palermo – History Standing Still [2004] – described by Merewether as “an experimental form of documentary, plays with the idea of 'authenticity’ in non-fiction films, and the ways in which the textural qualities of the image and soundtrack, as well as performance, contribute to, and complicate, these readings.” The film, nominated for a number of awards including the Film Critics Circle of Australia, the Australian Film Institute and an ATOM award, won a Dendy Award at the Sydney International Film Festival in 2004. Her recent work is in long form hybrid documentary. Jabe Babe – A Heightened Life [2005] won an IF Award – Best Australian Documentary, 2005, an AFI Award for Best Documentary Directing also 2005, and a Merit Award at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival. Maverick Mother was awarded two ATOM Awards for Best Australian Documentary 2008 (General and Human Story categories), and two awards at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival 2008 (Audience Choice and Jury Special Mention).
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