Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra

Wayne Blair is an acclaimed film, television and theater director, writer, actor, and producer.
Wayne’s debut hit feature film, The Sapphires, a musical comedy, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and has since brought him recognition around the world. It played at festivals including Telluride, Toronto, Aspen, Zurich, and Hamburg. The film is the highest grossing Australian film of 2012 in Australia and won eleven AACTA Awards including Best Director and Best Film.
Wayne has most recently directed upcoming feature film Top End Wedding starring Miranda Tapsell, which is set to have its World Premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The film was directed by Wayne Blair (The Sapphires, Cleverman), and co-written by Miranda and Joshua Tyler (Plonk). Prior to this, he directed the hit series Love Child (Series 6) and Bite Club (Series 1) and worked as an actor on Mystery Road (directed by Rachel Perkins). Wayne directed the remake of Dirty Dancing for Lionsgate in the US and the second season of the highly successful Clever Man, after directing Season 1. Wayne co-produced and directed Clever Man – an innovative six-part futuristic action drama for ABC-TV, a co-production between Goalpost Pictures and Pukeko Pictures, starring Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen, Frances O’Connor and Deborah Mailman.He directed Septembers of Shiraz, featured at the Toronto International Film Festival (September 2015) and the opening of the San Diego Film Festival, with an impressive award-winning cast including Salma Hayek and Adrien Brody. Wayne’s television directing credits include Redfern Now for ABC TV, Lockie Leonard Series 1 and 2 for the Nine Network, Australian-British children’s supernatural comedy TV series, Dead Gorgeous for the BBC and Australian children’s TV series Double Trouble.

Biographical notes provided by the film production team

Selected films:
Top End Wedding (2019)
Clever Man 2 (2016)
Dirty Dancing (2015)
September of Shiraz (2013)
The Elegant Gentlemans Guide to Knife Fighting (2012)

Nel Minchin is a director, producer and writer in documentary, entertainment and comedy.
Her debut film Matilda and Me (co-directed with Rhian Skirving) was the ABC’s highest rating documentary of 2016, nominated for Best Documentary at the AACTA awards and won the Best Biographical and Best Arts Documentaries at the ATOMs that same year. Her follow-up film Making Muriel was shortlisted for the AACTAs, nominated for the ATOMs and was listed by Screen Australia in the top 5 highest rating TV docs of 2017. Gaycrashers, starring Joel Creasey and Rhys Nicholson, was a comedy documentary she created, wrote and produced in 2013 as part of the ABC2/ Screen Australia initiative ​‘Opening Shot’.
She co-wrote and directed Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra, with Wayne Blair.
In the digital space, Nel created and directed The Next Stage – a digital theatre documentary in collaboration with Google Creative Labs and Griffin Theatre Company in 2014.
In scripted comedy she has produced 2 half hour comedy episodes – Aunty Donna (ABC TV) and Aunty Donna’s Chaperones – Pilot (Stan) and webseries’ Aunty Donna: Fresh Blood (ABC iView), Fully Furnished for Tom Ballard, Tommy Dassalo and Ronny Chieng (SBS) and the hugely popular and critically acclaimed Aunty Donna: 1999 for Youtube/​Screen Australia.
Nel was a recipient of the Screen Australia Enterprise People Grant 2017 – 2018.
Before making her own work Nel spent two years as a development producer at Fremantle Media Australia, freelanced at CJZ and the ABC in Australia and in London; at Google Creative Lab, All3Media, Shed Media, Tiger Aspect and RDF.
She has also had two daughters since 2015, which she feels belongs on her biography, as they continue to be her most exhausting and exciting productions to date.

Biographical notes provided by the film production team

The Truth About Anxiety with Celia Pacquola (2021)
Capturing Cricket: Steve Waugh in India (2020)
Making Muriel (2017)
Matilda & Me (2015)