In the digital age it’s sometimes easy to overlook the physical crafts of filmmaking. Make-up and prosthetics are vital to the creation of characters in film, television and theatre - bringing werewolves, Terminators and planets full of apes to life. Despite not being celebrated at the Oscars until 1980, make-up and prosthetics have a long history in cinema. An outcry over The Elephant Man not being recognised at the 1980 Academy Awards led to the creation of a new category, which has seen Australian winners like Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin being recognised for their work on Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
Curator Notes
Edie Kurzer is a celebrated Australian designer. Twice she has won the AACTA Award, the most prestigious prize for costume design in Australia, for her work on the iconic 6 part TV series Picnic at Hanging Rock (Foxtel /FremantleMedia) and the highly lauded ABC mini-series Molly. With Picnic she also won the coveted Australian Production Design Guild’s prize and in 2019 won it once more for the feature film Judy & Punch.
Over the past twenty-five years in Australia Edie has made crucial contributions to major productions such as: the Gillian Armstrong-directed documentary feature film Women He’s Undressed (about Orry Kelly); the influential TV mini-series Secret River and Violent Earth; and the feature films South Solitary (starring Miranda Otto), Look Both Ways, Matching Jack, and Thank God He Met Lizzie (starring Cate Blanchett, Richard Roxburgh and Frances O’Connor). She also designed costumes for Josh Thomas on his ground-breaking television series Please Like Me (season 4).
Internationally, Edie has worked with director Bill Bennett on both In a Savage land and Tempted (starring Burt Reynolds and Saffron Burrows) and with the renowned British film and theatre director Mike Leigh on the Royal Stratford Theatre’s production of A Greek Tragedy (London/Edinburgh/Sydney).
Edie has also collaborated in vital cultural and educational projects in Indigenous communities in major cities and in remote regions of Australia.
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Collection
Not in ACMI's collection
On display until
16 February 2031
ACMI: Gallery 1
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Foyer → Entry → FSF-02. Fed Sq Foyer Cabinets → FSF Cabinet 11
Object Types
3D Object
Diorama