Warwick Thornton

Warwick Thornton (born 1970) is an Australian film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. His debut feature film "Samson and Delilah" won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for "Sweet Country".
Early life.
Thornton is a Kaytetye man born and raised in Alice Springs. His mother Freda Glynn co-founded and was the first director of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and was the director of Imparja Television for its first 10 years.
At 13, Thornton was sent to school in Australia's only monastic town, New Norcia, Western Australia, although he later declared he became angry with Christianity and did not consider himself religious.
One of his sisters, Erica Glynn, is also a film writer and director. He has two brothers: Scott Thornton, an actor who played the role of Gonzo in "Samson and Delilah", and Rob Thornton, who is an Indigenous liaison officer in Cairns Base Hospital, Queensland.
Thornton has three children. His son Dylan River is a filmmaker and his youngest daughter Luka May, an aspiring actor, has appeared in a number of her fathers films including Sweet Country, 2017.
Career.
He graduated in cinematography from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Thornton began his career making short films and has achieved success with them at film festivals around the world, including "Payback" at the Telluride Film Festival and "Green Bush" and "Nana" at the Berlin International Film Festival. He describes his decision to become a filmmaker in an interview in 2007:
Where I grew up in Alice I was a DJ for a radio station (CAAMA). The station began a film unit and so I watched people pack cameras and equipment into cars and take off to make films. I was alone at the radio station and I thought that I really wanted to go with them. That's how it started, I made a film called "Green Bush" which is basically about that time. Eventually I went to AFTRS in Sydney and got really involved as a Director of Photography. I’ve been in the business for 9 years now.In 2009 Thornton wrote, directed and shot his first feature film "Samson & Delilah", which won awards including the Camera d’Or for best first feature film at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The following year he filmed the documentary series "Art + Soul" about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, which was written and narrated by curator Hetti Perkins. The installation "Mother Courage" (inspired by Bertolt Brecht's 1939 character) was commissioned by dOCUMENTA and ACMI, and first exhibited in 2012.