Dr Janet Merewether is an award-winning filmmaker, digital media artist, production designer and academic, who has taught at Sydney College of the Arts, Macquarie University, UTS, UWS, and the AFTRS in Sydney. In 2008 she completed a doctoral research degree (DCA) at University of Technology, Sydney on the subject of innovative design and performance in hybrid documentary. Merewether founded Go Girl Productions in 1995 and Screen Culture Pty Limited in 2007 for the production of creative documentaries, films and digital media.
Merewether has worked in film, video and digital media, directing documentaries, short films, experimental film and digital art, as well as designing feature film title sequences, including The Boys. Her video works include Cheap Blonde (1998), Making out In Japan (1996) and Taking Her for A Spin (1997). Many of Merewether’s short works combine a number of formats including 35mm,16mm, Super 8 film, 1” videotape, Video 8, Betacam SP, Betacam Digital, HD Digital, and include Contemporary Case Studies (2001), Short Before The Movie (2003) and Knitface (2004).
The experimental media work Palermo – History Standing Still (2004) – described by Merewether as “an experimental form of documentary, plays with the idea of 'authenticity' in non-fiction films, and the ways in which the textural qualities of the image and soundtrack, as well as performance, contribute to, and complicate, these readings.” The film, nominated for a number of awards including the Film Critics Circle of Australia, the Australian Film Institute and an ATOM award, won a Dendy Award at the Sydney International Film Festival in 2004. Her recent work is in long form hybrid documentary. Jabe Babe – A Heightened Life (2005) won an IF Award - Best Australian Documentary, 2005, an AFI Award for Best Documentary Directing also 2005, and a Merit Award at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival. Maverick Mother was awarded two ATOM Awards for Best Australian Documentary 2008 (General and Human Story categories), and two awards at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival 2008 (Audience Choice and Jury Special Mention).
‘The Beginning of the Beginning’, article, Janet Merewether’s work as a film titles and broadcast/motion graphics designer, Metro Magazine, Spring 2004.
‘Introduction’, Kuo Li-Hsin, Taiwanese film/media lecturer, Janet Merewether retrospective program, Women Make Waves Festival.
RealTime, various articles written about or by Janet Merewether, including: ‘Artificial Showrooms of Emotion’, Cassi Plate, featured artist article, June 2002; ‘Young Filmmakers’ Erections and Reflections (FTO Young Filmmakers’ Fund Festival)’, Mireille Juchau, review of Contemporary Case Studies, RealTime/OnScreen, No. 43, June/July 2001, p. 18; Cheap Blonde, Virginia Baxter, review, RealTime/OnScreen, No. 26, August/September 1998.
‘Hunting, Shooting and Gathering’, article on the films of Janet Merewether, Cantrills Filmnotes, No. 93–100, p. 63, January 2000.
Contemporary Case Studies (at NYFF), Amy Taubin, review, Village Voice, Vol XLVI No.39, p. 112, 2 October 2001.
‘Om jag hade en pistol’, Lina Kalmteg, review of films by Janet Merewether, Uppsala Film Festival Program, 20th anniversary newsletter of festival, p. 16, Sweden, 2001.
Janet Merewether Retrospective, and Eye For Idea experimental/documentary film program curated by Janet Merewether, Tampere and Berlin screenings, Berlin Kinemathek (Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek program), March 2002.
‘Fuck the Mainstream, Let’s Make Art’, Janet Merewether on women and experimental screen arts in Australia, in Womenvision: Women and the Moving Image in Australia, 2003.
Merewether, J. 2005, Tall Tale & True, The Australian Doctor Magazine, November 2005, Reed Business Information, Sydney, pp. 24-29.
Merewether, J. 2009, Shaping The Real: Directorial imagination and the visualisation of evidence in the hybrid documentary, SCAN - Online journal of media arts and culture, Vol. 6 Number 3, December 2009, Macquarie University, Sydney.
Merewether, J. 2010, Maverick Mother, From Social Pariah to Social Progressive Hecate 36, 1 & 2 University of Queensland, Brisbane, pp.101-118.
Merewether, J. 2011, Filming Non-Normative Embodiment: Power, Sexuality and Genetic Difference in Jabe Babe A Heightened Life, a Documentary about a Dominatrix with Marfan Syndrome. Somatechnics 1.2, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 334-356.
Merewether, J. 2012, Autobiographical and historical representations of maternal embodiment and the single mother in the hybrid documentary Maverick Mother. Expanding Documentary 2011: VIIIth Biennial Conference, Auckland: Vol.1, No. 2, December 2011: Editorial and Peer-Reviewed Papers. Refereed abstracts: G. Peters (ed.) ISSN: 2253-1467. Peer reviewed conference papers: G. Peters (ed.) ISSN: 2253-1475 (digital), pp. 150-161
