AustLit

Film producer and screenwriter.

A prolific and acclaimed film producer and scriptwriter, Joan Long was educated at Geelong High School, Victoria, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Melbourne. She later trained in film production at Film Australia, and began her career in 1948 working as a director and scriptwriter for the Commonwealth Film Unit, an opportunity rarely given to women at that time. Among her earliest productions as director were the documentaries Our Firemen (1951); Our Policemen (1952); a series focusing on railways, beginning in 1952 with Let's Look at Railways; and In Harbour (1953).

After some years raising her children, Long returned to the Film Unit to work full time as a writer. Three of her films during this period--The Pictures that Moved (1969), The Passionate Industry (1973), and Paddington Lace (1971)--received awards from the Australian Writers' Guild. The Pictures that Moved and The Passionate Industry were documentaries about the early days of Australian cinema, and fostered in Long a deep commitment to, interest in, and passion for the Australian film industry and its development.

Long's first script for a feature film was Caddie (1976), highly regarded for its attention to period detail; she and producer Tony Buckley drew upon their knowledge of Australian films of the 1920s to create authenticity. In 1975, Long formed the company Limelight Productions. She went on to produce and write The Picture Show Man (1976). In 1981, she co-produced, with writer Margaret Kelly, the highly anticipated adaptation of Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey's Puberty Blues. In 1984, Long tackled the sensitive social issue of European post-war migrants to Australia through the feature film Silver City. Five years later, she produced her final film, Emerald City (1989), an adaptation of David Williamson's satirical play about power, corruption, and the film industry.

Joan Long's contribution to the film industry can be measured not only in the significance of the films she produced and wrote and the social justice issues she addressed in many of these works, but also through her active encouragement of the Australian film industry and her focus on the preservation of Australian film history. A significant player in the movement to establish an institution to preserve Australian films, Long headed the first Advisory Committee for the National Film and Sound Archive in 1984. The committee played a key role in developing the blueprint for the archive's future.

For her services to the Australian film industry, Long was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977 and became a Member of the Order of Australia. Her other awards include Australian Writers' Guild Awards for best documentary script (1969 and 1973) and best theatrical screenplay (1971). Long died in January 1999. In August that year, she was posthumously honoured with the Ken G. Hall Award, sponsored by the National Film and Sound Archive, for her significant contribution to Australian film preservation.