Meet our Artists in Residence
Griffith Film School invites and hosts a number of Artists in Residence (AIR) to consult and mentor students in an intensive mode. Our residency programs give students the opportunity to work alongside industry professionals, to challenge and refine their artistic and technical practices, exchange ideas and perspectives, and inspire students to take their own pursuits to the next level.
Wayne Blair
Film/Television/Theatre Director & Writer
Wayne Blair is an acclaimed film, television and theatre 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. The film has since played at festivals including Telluride, Toronto, Aspen, Zurich and Hamburg, earning him worldwide recognition. THE SAPPHIRES was the highest grossing Australian film of 2012 and won eleven AACTA Awards, including Best Director and Best Film. In 2013 Wayne directed SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ, which featured at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and opened the San Diego Film Festival, with an impressive award winning cast including Salma Hayek and Adrien Brody. In 2015 and 2016 Wayne co-produced and directed CLEVERMAN series 1 and 2 – for Sundance TV / ABC-TV, starring Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen, Frances O’Connor and Deborah Mailman.
In 2019 Wayne’s feature film TOP END WEDDING starring Miranda Tapsell, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Wayne’s most recent film is the feature documentary FIRESTARTER, which he co-directed with Nel Minchin. The film tells the story of the Page brothers and the Bangarra Dance Company.
Ben Young
Ben Young is an award winning writer/director who began his career acting for screen at the age of 12.
He completed a Bachelor of Arts at Curtin University in 2003 and a Master of Screen Studies at the WA Screen Academy in 2005. He has since directed music videos, commercials, fashion film, and written and/or directed series television.
His 2016 feature debut HOUNDS OF LOVE was funded through ScreenWest’s West Coast Visions, produced by Factor 30 Films starring Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummins and Stephen Curry. It had its world premiere at the 2016 Venice Film Festival, picking up a prize for Best Actress in a Debut Film (Venice Days), and received 9 AACTA award nominations including Best Film and Best Direction.
Ben’s second film EXTINCTION premiered on Netflix in 2018 starring Michael Peña and Lizzy Caplan.
He recently completed directing a block of Netflix’s CLICKBAIT for Tony Ayres Productions. He is currently attached to direct a number of international projects and has several local and international projects in development.
Axel Grigor
Axel Grigor is a Swedish-Australian filmmaker and lecturer. After graduating from Griffith Film School (Brisbane, Australia) in 2001, he co-founded Faraway Productions Pty Ltd with Iranian-Australian filmmaker Faramarz K-Rahber. His efforts with Faraway Productions and collaborations with other filmmakers have screened in competition at Venice Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, IDFA and Gothenburg Film Festival.
His directorial debut JILL BILCOCK: DANCING THE INVISIBLE – a portrait of celebrated Australian film editor Jill Bilcock – received the Audience Award at the 2017 Adelaide Film Festival, was nominated in the Best Feature Documentary category at the 2018 AACTA Awards and had its US premiere at the Lincoln Centre in New York. A strong supporter of industry-level involvement in the development of new screen talent, he has taught filmmaking and film editing at leading film schools and universities in Australia and Europe.
In November 2022 we was awarded the degree of Doctor of Visual Arts by Griffith University for his thesis 'Jill Bilcock: Revealing the Invisible Artist – Recognising the creative contributions of film editors to filmmaking through biographical documentary film'. He is an Accredited Member of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA), The Society of Australian Cinema Pioneers and Australian Screen Editors (ASE). He is a current board member of The Swedish Film Editing Guild (SFK).
David Puttnam
Lord David Puttnam is the Chair of Atticus Education, an online education company founded in 2012 that delivers audio-visual seminars to students around the world.
He is a member of the House of Lords where he pursues an active role in a variety of areas, from educational and environmental issues to digital skills.
He spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Local Hero. Collectively, these films have won ten Oscars, ten Golden Globes, twenty-five Baftas and the Palme D'Or in Cannes.
Anthony Mullins
Anthony is a BAFTA and AWGIE award winning screenwriter and director. The projects Anthony has written and directed have won numerous international awards including a Primetime Emmy, an International Digital Emmy, two BAFTAs and five Australian Writers Guild awards.
He has been the creative director and lead writer on several award-winning interactive projects for major film and television productions including Lost, Spooks, Primeval, The Bourne Legacy and Salt. His short films and documentaries have competed in some of the world's most prestigious film festivals including Cannes Film Festival, SXSW, Aspen Shortsfest and Karlo Vary Film Festival. Between 2006 and 2012 Anthony was the Creative Director of Hoodlum before joining Matchbox Pictures as a TV Development Executive from 2015 to 2017.
Anthony has also been a script producer and script editor on numerous award-winning TV projects including Safe Harbour (Winner of 2019 International Emmy for Best Mini-Series), Five Bedrooms (Season 1) and Nowhere Boys (Season 4).
He holds a Doctorate of Visual Arts (Griffith University) and is currently writing a book on screenwriting for New South Publishing.
Vytis Puronas
Associate Professor Vytis Puronas comes from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LMTA) Vilnius, Lithuania.
Vytis Puronas is known as an Sound Re-Recording, Mixer, Sound Editor, Sound Designer, Dolby Consultant, Sound, Music, and Supervising Sound Editor. He is known for Dawn of War (2020), Oleg (2019) and Vanishing Waves (2012).
Tait Brady
Tait has worked within the Australian film industry for more than 30 years, developing a unique skillset that embraces production, creative development, marketing, distribution and curation. Born in Melbourne, he grew up in Queensland and gained a BA in Cinema Studies and Australian Media history from Griffith University, Brisbane, before there ever was a film school.
He is both a Film Producer ( THE ACME FILM COMPANY) and a Distributor ( LABEL DISTRIBUTION). Previously Tait has had roles leading an indie distribution company (Palace Films), been a senior Script Development Executive (FFC Australia/Screen Australia), managed and programmed cinemas, and was Director of the Melbourne International Film Festival for 9 years.
Over the last 10 years he has Produced or Exec Produced 12 projects, including the feature films HEALING (w/ Hugo Weaving & Xavier Samuel- 2013), domestic comedy THE BBQ (2017), BROTHERS’ NEST (SxSW 2018), I MET A GIRL ( Netflix Australia/Gravitas USA -2020) and feature docs SUZI Q (2019), DEFEND CONSERVE PROTECT (Winner- Best Intl Feature AmDocs, 2019), I’M WANITA (Hot Docs 2021) and LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES (2022). His films have played major Festivals (SXSW, Cannes, Seattle, Montreal, Doc NYC, Melbourne, Sydney and more) and been sold to multiple territories.