Samantha Lang is a filmmaker and visual artist who has worked in
Australia, France and the US over the last 20 years. Her feature films
‘The Well’, ‘The Monkey’s Mask’ and ‘L’Idole’ screened at major
international festivals such as Sundance, Toronto, Locarno, and have
received international recognition at the highest level, The Well
competing at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme D’Or. In Australia,
her films have been awarded many times including - at the Australian
Film Institute Awards and the Sydney Film Festival. In 2019 – her
feature documentary “It all started with a stale sandwich’ competed in
the DAF awards at SFF.
Most recently she has made two VR films ‘Prehistoric VR’ and
‘Anthropocene VR’ in collaboration with Erth Visual and Physical and
supported by Create NSW. These VR films form part of her creative
practice doctorate (PHD). Her areas of research include the
eco-feminine, the post-human, environmental histories, geopoetics, the
Anthropocene, and non-traditional forms of screenwriting.
As well
as being a creative practitioner, she has mentored, supervised and
lectured emerging film directors in her capacity as Head of Directing at
AFTRS (2010-2016), as well as at Create NSW and Screen Australia.
In 2017 Samantha was co-leader of HIVE lab at AIFF 2017 where she facilitated twelve arts practitioners to reimagine their creative projects as works for the screen.
In 2015 she was elected as President of the Australian Director’s Guild
and in 2016 was on the taskforce at Screen Australia that rolled out the
Gender Matters Initiative to redress gender and diversity imbalance in
the sector. She is a creative production consultant for Screen
Australia, Screen NSW, Screen Tasmania, has been on panels at Australian
and International film festivals, including Jury Member at Edinburgh,
South Korea, and filmmaker masterclasses at Stanford
University.
Currently Samantha works as Head of Development
/Executive Producer at I AM THAT/See-Saw Films where she oversees a
slate of film and limited TV series. Samantha’s personal projects
include a screen adaptations of ‘Kill The Messenger’ by indigenous
playwright, Nakkiah Lui (Brilliant Stories initiative), and an eco-film
called ‘Brown Lake’