Lawrence Johnston is a renowned writer, director, and producer who has made a significant impact in the film industry. He began his career as a film repairer at 20th Century-Fox before graduating from the prestigious Swinburne Film and Television School in Melbourne, Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television.
Johnston's work has been showcased at numerous international film festivals, including Cannes, Toronto, Berlin, Telluride, Chicago, and London. His first film, the short dramatic feature "Night Out," was an official selection at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival and was named one of the year's ten best by the New York Village Voice.
Johnston's documentary feature "Eternity" won several awards, including the Best Feature Award at the Los Angeles International Documentary Association and the Best Cinematography Award at the 1995 Australian Film Institute Awards. It was also named one of the year's ten best by WHO Magazine and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.
Johnston's debut feature drama, "Life," won the FIPRESCI International Critic's Prize at the 1997 Toronto Film Festival and was nominated for several Australian awards, including four Australian Oscars and four Australian Film Critic's Circle Awards.
Johnston's work has been featured in major retrospectives on Australian cinema at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has also worked as a development and production executive at Screen Australia between the of production his films.
In 2005, Johnston's company Rough Trade Pictures produced several films, including "The Dream of Love" and "Once a Queen," both for SBS Television, as well as his second feature film, "Night," which he wrote, directed, and co-produced in conjunction with Circe Films. "Night" had its international premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically in the United States by Film Festival Flix.
Johnston's most recent projects include the feature documentary "Fallout," which he completed in 2013 for SBS and distributed by Transmission Films, and the U.S. feature documentary "Neon," which he completed in 2016 with Veronica Fury at Wildbear Entertainment. The film premiered at the 2016 Melbourne International Film Festival.
In 2019, the Australian National Film and Sound Archive digitally restored Johnston's film "Eternity" on its 25th anniversary, making it part of Australia's national collection of films of historic worth. Johnston is currently in pre-production on his feature film "Love Me Tender," which will star Aaron Pedersen, and is developing a fiction feature version of "Once a Queen" with Screen Australia and Screen Queensland.
