Films - Baz Luhrmann

BAFTA is to host its next A Life in Pictures career retrospective with multi-award winning writer, director and producer Baz Luhrmann ...

Press Release

The multi-award-winning writer, director and producer Baz Luhrmann will explore his long-standing and extraordinary film career at the next ‘BAFTA: A Life in Pictures’ event on Friday 30th September, at 195 Piccadilly in London.

‘BAFTA: A Life in Pictures’ is a long-running series of on-stage interviews in which some of the world’s leading film and television talent share special, and sometimes never-before-told career insights into the experiences that helped them hone and develop their craft.

Baz Luhrmann is a master storyteller and pioneer of pop culture. In this 90-minute Q&A, BAFTA will unpack his cross-disciplinary versatility and interests spanning film, opera, theatre, events and music.

Lurhmann’s most recent film, Elvis, which opened in cinemas around the world this summer, has become the filmmaker’s highest-grossing film in the US and in 21 international territories and ranks as the second-highest grossing musical biopic of all time, globally.

The Oscar-nominated director, writer and producer first garnered major attention through the Red Curtain Trilogy, Strictly Ballroom (1992), followed by the ambitious and seminal modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Academy Award-winning Moulin Rouge! (2001), which brought back the movie-musical and cemented Luhrmann’s cult-like following amongst audiences and industry. In addition, Moulin Rouge! The Musical won Tony Awards for scenic design, costume, lighting, sound design and orchestrations, and a featured acting Tony for Broadway favourite Danny Burstein. Sonya Tayeh won for choreography on her Broadway debut, and Alex Timbers won the trophy for best direction of a musical.

Additionally, Luhrmann’s production company, Bazmark Inq, won two Tony Awards for the Broadway run of Puccini’s opera La Bohème (2002), followed by the sweeping historical epic Australia (2008). The adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (2013), also won two Academy Awards. A collaboration with Netflix later produced The Get Down (2016), a critically successful series based on the birth of hip-hop in 1970s South Bronx.

Luhrmann’s recent directorial projects include Faraway Downs, a six-part Hulu series reimagining his 2008 feature film, Australia, where he is currently living with wife and long-time collaborator, Catherine Martin (CM), and their two children.

BAFTA: A Life in Pictures has hosted figures including Daniel Craig, Quentin Tarantino, Annette Bening, Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis, Chiwetel Ejiofor, David Fincher, Hugh Grant, Allison Janney, Keira Knightley Sam Mendes, Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Scorsese, Kristin Scott Thomas, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet.

This will be the third BAFTA: A Life in Pictures event supported by TCL Mobile, following the George Clooney and Daniel Craig interviews in 2020 and 2021. Public tickets are now available here.

Baz Luhrmann, image ©Trent Mitchell, 2021