Happy 70th Birthday, Phillip Noyce! Born today in 1950, this Australian screenwriter, producer and director of film and television, since 1977, has directed over nineteen feature films in various genres, including historical drama, thrillers, and action films.
Noyce has worked with such actors as Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington, Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Rutger Hauer and others.
Noyce has also executive-produced, written and directed television programmes in both Australia and North America.
These included the 1985 Australian mini series The Cowra Breakout, the 1987 Australian television mini-series Vietnam, the 2011 American drama television series Revenge, the 2016 American miniseries Roots and most-recently, Netflix's 2019 American thriller web television miniseries What/If.
Among his credits, Noyce is best known for co-producing and directing the 2002 Australian adventure/drama film 'Rabbit-Proof Fence'.
Set in 1931, the film follows three mixed-race girls who are torn brutally from their Aboriginal mother and sent over a thousand miles away to a training camp for domestic workers as part of a government policy to integrate them into white society.
The eponymous fence bisects Australia from north to south, and was built to keep rabbits on one side and pasture on the other.
The film co-stars Kenneth Branagh (Protector of Western Australian Aborigines A. O. Neville, called Mr. Devil by them). He signs an order to relocate the three girls to the Moore River Native Settlement.
The girls later spend nine weeks in walking along the 1,500 miles of the Australian fence in order to return to their community at Jigalong (a remote, indigenous community in Western Australia.)
This is while being pursued by white law enforcement authorities and experienced Aboriginal tracker Moodoo (David Gulpilil).
'Rabbit-Proof Fence' illustrates the official child removal policy that worked in Australia between approximately 1905 and 1967 years, its victims now are called "Stolen Generations".
The film is loosely based on Australian author Doris Pilkington Garimara's 1996 biographical book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence.
In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Noyce's other notable credits include the 1992 American spy thriller/action film 'Patriot Games', the 1994 American spy thriller/action film 'Clear and Present Danger' and the 2010 American action/mystery thriller film 'Salt'.
Noyce's work has won him several accolades, including AACTA Awards for Best Film, Best Director, and a special Longford Lyell lifetime achievement award.
Noyce has been active from 1969-present.
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