Jane Campion has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 edition of Imagineindia International Film Festival to be held in Madrid.

This is what she said to Imagineindia:

“I went to India in my 30’s and I met yoga mother or Mrs. Dayas. She lived in Jaipur and she taught me yoga. Her and her family also visited me to Sydney AUSTRALIA and one way or another We tried to see each other every year. When I was developing the idea of HOLY SMOKE, which I wrote with my sister Anna Campion, I partly wanted to do it so I could see my Indian family and they could help me with the filming so that’s really my connection to India it was all through Yoga mother and the DAYA’S family of Jaipur. My friendship with them and my love of India which is on going has really enriched my life.”

Elizabeth Jane Campion  (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films The Piano (1993) and The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she has received two Academy Awards (including Best Director for the latter), two BAFTA Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Campion was appointed a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) in the 2016 New Year Honours, for services to film.

Campion is a groundbreaking female director, as of 2022 the only woman to be nominated twice for Academy Award for Best Director (winning once), and the first female filmmaker to receive the Palme d’Or (for The Piano, which also won her the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay). She made history at the 94th Academy Awards when she won Best Director for The Power of the Dog (2021), as the oldest female director to win, the first woman to win Academy Awards for both directing and screenwriting in her different films, and the first woman not to win Best Picture after winning Best Director. She broke the same barrier at the 78th Venice International Film Festival when she won the Silver Lion award. She is the third woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Feature Film.

Campion is also known for directing the films An Angel at My Table (1990), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Holy Smoke! (1998), and Bright Star (2009). She also co-created the television series Top of the Lake (2013) and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

In 1976, she enrolled in the Chelsea Art School in London and traveled throughout Europe. She earned a graduate diploma in visual arts (painting) from the Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney in 1981. Campion’s later film work was shaped in part by her art school education; she has, even in her mature career, cited painter Frida Kahlo and sculptor Joseph Beuys as influences.

Campion’s dissatisfaction with the limitations of painting led her to filmmaking and the creation of her first short, Tissues, in 1980. In 1981, she began studying at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, where she made several more short films and graduated in 1984.

FILMOGRAPHY

1986 Two Friends
1989 Sweetie
1990 An Angel at My Table
1993 The Piano
1996 The Portrait of a Lady
1999 Holy Smoke!
Soft Fruit No No Yes
2003 In the Cut
2006 Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
2009 Bright Star
2021 The Power of the Dog

1980 Tissues
1981 Mishaps of Seduction and Conquest
1982 Peel: An Exercise in Discipline
1983 Passionless Moments
1984 A Girl’s Own Story
After Hours
2006 The Water Diary
2007 The Lady Bug
2012 I’m the One
2016 Family Happiness