Judy Rymer

Judy Rymer has been directing and producing drama and documentary films for the past 30 years. Her work covers a wide range of subjects concentrating on social and political history and science. She has just completed I Will Not Be Silenced (released May 2015) with co-producer, Lois Harris. The film follows an Australian woman's fight for justice in the Kenyan Courts after being gang raped in Nairobi. The company is producing Firing The Magic Bullet, a series about the arduous process of commercialising science. Rymer wrote and directed All Points Of The Compass, a documentary about a South Vietnamese family diaspora for ABC Australia/ BBC Scotland. She produced and directed TIMEBOMB, a critique of the New Zealand welfare system; the award winning Victory Over Death about artist, Colin McCahon which won gold at Chicago; Fifteen Minutes Of Fire for ABC Australia; and Cinema Of Unease for the British Film Institute's Century of Cinema series for ABC (Australia) Channel 4. Her film was officially selected for "Un Certain Regard" at the Cannes International Film Festival and won Best Documentary in the NZ Film Awards. Rymer wrote and directed The History Of The Bathing Costume, screened on Discovery America and Channel Nine (Australia); Poles Apart, on the controversial Australian purchase of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles for SBS; and Message From Moree, launched at National Parliament and screened on the ABC to mark annual Aboriginal Rights Day. Her controversial underground series Punished Not Protected, in defence of asylum seekers in Australia has been widely distributed through schools and community groups. For Discovery Asia she made Being Chen Kaige, a personal view of Chinese film over the last thirty years through the eyes of the Director of Farewell My Concubine. Risking Our Kids was also screened in Federal Parliament and Frank And Daz Take On The World, shot in Cambodia and New York for BBC/SBS investigated the power of friendship. A recurring theme in Rymer's work is the social/political and cultural difference one can chart on a human scale through the stories of individuals, an interest that has assured her of an audience spanning the last 30 years.