Jane Campion

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Jane Campion (born April 30, 1954 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an Academy Award-winning film maker. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the USA. Campion attended the Australian Film Television and Radio School early in its history, where she learned the craft that has resulted in a career that spans fourteen films as director, three as producer and eight as writer.

Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival and other awards followed for the shorts Passionless Moments (1983) and Girls Own Story (1984). Sweetie (1989) was her feature debut, and won international awards. Further recognition followed with An Angel at my Table (1990), a dramatised autobiography of the poet Janet Frame. International recognition followed with another Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993 for The Piano, which won the best director award from the Australian Film Institute and an Oscar for best screenplay in 1994. She was the second woman ever to be nominated best director at the 66th Academy Awards.

Campion's work since that time has tended to polarize opinion. The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the Henry James novel, featured Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Barbara Hershey and Martin Donovan. Holy Smoke! (1999) teamed Campion again with Harvey Keitel, this time with Kate Winslet as the female lead. In the Cut (2003), an erotic thriller based on Susanna Moore's bestseller, provided Meg Ryan an opportunity to depart from her more familiar onscreen persona.