Penelope McDonald - Producer and Director of Film Australia's Immigration

Penelope McDonald, principal of Chili Films, an independent Australian production company, is an accomplished producer and director with a number of internationally acclaimed productions to her credit. In mid-2004 she took up a position as the inaugural Director of the newly established NT Film Television & New Media Office.

Chili Films produced the highly acclaimed feature documentary My Mother India for SBS Television. It has been a box office hit, screening for more than six months in Sydney. Much Ado About Something, with director Mike Rubbo, has screened on ABC, BBC and PBS, as well as touring theatrically in Australia.

Chili Films produced 12 state-of-the-millennium audio-visual installations that have been on permanent display in the Gallery of First Australians at the new National Museum of Australia since 2001.

Penelope McDonald and Chili Films' body of work explores culture and relationships between cultures, particularly between indigenous and other cultures, with the award- winning documentaries Too Many Captain Cooks, Black Sheep and Photographic Memory, and dramas My Mother My Son, My Bed Your Bed and Payback.

One of Penelope's early films, Night Cries, directed by Australian artist Tracey Moffat, was a finalist in Cannes in 1990 and has been one of Australia's most successful short films in the last decade.

In addition to her work with Chili Films, Penelope worked for many years with Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory. She worked in the education sector, with both children and adults, and has also been employed on contract by peak government film organisations including the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the New South Wales Film and Television Office and Film Australia. She was a founding member and past president of Women in Film and Television, and is a member of the Australian Film Institute.

Paul Byrnes was director of the Sydney Film Festival for 10 years, from 1989 to 1998, during which he made documentary a special feature of the festival program. In recognition of that, he was made an associate member of the Australian Screen Director's Association by ASDA's documentary committee.

From 1976 to 1989, he was a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald. Assignments included two years as the Herald correspondent in Papua New Guinea, one year covering state politics, and four years as senior feature writer.

From 1985 to 1989, he specialised in writing on film, as reviewer and film industry reporter. Since leaving the film festival, he has been a freelance writer on film and freelance curator. He programmed the films for the 1999 Australian documentary conference in Adelaide, was a specialist consultant to the new National Museum of Australia on its audio-visual materials in 2001, and has curated two programs for the Australian Film Commission (Brooklyn 2001, Berlin 2002).

In 2000, he wrote a book for Qantas on the life and work of a 90-year-old engineer, George Roberts, to commemorate the airline's 80th anniversary.