Film Director

Award-winning, emerging filmmaker in an ongoing process of developing and redefining her art.
Though she has worked on commercial cinema film and TV and facilitated innovative industry programs for film festivals, Beverley’s own work as a film director is her primary focus.

The combination of a vibrant, artistic ancestry and growing up in rural South East Queensland shaped Beverley’s future path. Her great, great, grandfather, Professor Frederick Augustus Brookes was a blood brother of the Sioux tribe, translator and peacemaker for the US Army and photographer in the late 1800’s in Victoria. Her grandfather, R.E. Lord was Melbourne-based cinematographer and photographer in the early days of Australian television. As a teenager, he instilled in Beverley a love of cameras and the visual image. Her father, a scientist and musician who played in a rock band in the sixties, was also an opera singer, musical director, church choir leader, acapella leader, barbershop singer and swing band bass saxophonist. He enrolled her in speech and drama lessons from an early age.

Seven years of weekly drama classes gave Beverley an education in literature she could not receive in the public QLD education system at that time and introduced her to diverse literature from William Shakespeare to local Aboriginal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, also known as Kath Walker. Throughout her high school years, she wrote plays with her friend, writer D.M. Cameron, which they performed and produced at school. Beverley studied Acting and Visual Arts (Photography, Textiles and Sculpture) at the University of Southern Queensland, worked as an actor on stage and screen in QLD, NSW and SA and was a drama tutor for young people for 10 years, before shifting her focus from being onstage to behind the camera.

After an extended period of healing, Beverley discovered filmmaking as a way to consolidate her skills and tell stylised experimental dramas with themes such as domestic violence, addiction, homelessness and male suicide. She studied at TAFE, learning skills of producing, writing, camera, editing and sound engineering. Her first film about a shipwrecked child on a beach, who was nurtured back to life by the community spirits of the land, was symbolic for her own journey. As tribute to the area she lived, Bouddi, which means “heart” in Darkinyung, Beverley made 17-minute silent film, Love Buttons, a quirky, silent film about a travelling button salesman who rode the countryside on his pink bicycle stealing hearts in his search for love. Love Buttons received an Honourable Mention from judges, Margaret Pomeranz and Director of Photography, Don McAlpine at Coasties Film Festival 2009.

In 2010, while developing new plays with emerging writers and actors and directing play-readings and plays in Sydney’s emerging theatre maker’s scene, Beverley produced Happy Anniversary, a short, mobile phone film about child sexual abuse by a priest, which won awards in Australia and Spain and screened in more than 70 cities internationally. The film also screened at NSW Parliament House in a campaign for sexual abuse victims receive fairer compensation from the Catholic Church.

In 2011, Beverley directed the play The Salt Maiden, written by her childhood friend, D.M. Cameron before returning to Queensland to make the film version. She received funding from a QLD Government RADF grant to develop the play into a screenplay with the writer and actors. At the same time, she was selected to participate in Screen Producer’s Australia’s Emerging Producer’s Scheme and moved to Melbourne to base herself in the film offices of Australian producers, Sue Maslin and Melanie Coombes while making the film in Queensland. The Salt Maiden screened internationally and won Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography at Port Stephens Film Festival 2014 and Best Film at Coasties Film Festival, 2015.

Beverley returned to Sydney to study at the Australian Film Television & Radio School from 2015-2017, with electives in Directing, Cinematography and Editing. During that time, she worked with the producers of Hacksaw Ridge, Blue Murder and Tropfest and produced the Tropfest Craft Awards, creating mentorships as prizes. Her graduation film, Hate Dance, about racism employed all female heads of departments, won Gold in the Student Category at the Australian Cinematographer’s Society NSW Awards, 2018 and had its world premiere at Cyprus International Film Festival 2019. Hate Dance screened at Byron Bay International Film Festival in October 2020 and at Demakijaż -Women’s Film Festival, Poland in November 2020, in the competition, Let’s Start A Revolution showcasing the work of 50 female directors from around the globe and won Honourable Mention and Best Performance at the Kashmir International and Cultural Festival, 2020.

From 2017-2019, Beverley worked to help free refugees on Manus Island arbitrarily detained by Australia. New to advocacy, her efforts were productive, but the emotional fallout was taxing on her health. In 2018, she left Sydney and created Tall Stories Film Festival for the Townsville Cultural Festival, a micro-documentary mobile phone project to encourage and facilitate refugee and Indigenous communities in North Queensland to tell tall, but true stories.

In 2018, Beverley relocated to Byron Bay to find a more sustainable way of living and creating. Now she lives on a historic rural property in the Byron region and runs her own company Lillypilly Films, which creates films and content for businesses that align with ethical values. Beverley has been selected to participate in the 2021 Screenworks Director Pathway Program and is collaborating on a feature film set in the area where she lives.

Hate Dance (2018) 15 mins | drama 

written and directed by Beverley Callow, produced by Eero Heinonen, acted by Renee Lim and Taylor Wiese

a film about racism and dance

Official Selection – Sahar International Film Festival, UK 2021
Official Selection – Kashmir International and Cultural Festival 2020
– Honourable Mention – Kashmir International and Cultural Festival 2020
– Best Performance, Renee Lim – Kashmir International and Cultural Festival 2020
Official Selection – Demakijaż Women’s Film Festival, Poland 2020
Official Selection – Cyprus International Film Festival November 2019
Gold Winner, Emma Elias – Australian Cinematographers Society Awards 2018, NSW & ACT Student category

 

Man Shark (2017) 20 secs | noir 

written and directed by Beverley Callow, for #killthefintrade campaign with 72andsunny, Sea Shepherd and AFTRS

screened at Semi-Permanent Design, Carriageworks, Sydney

 

Leaving Bartholomew (2016) 7 mins | monologue

written and directed by Beverley Callow, acted by Imogen Sage

a woman ends her relationship with a bath

 

Windchime (2015) 5 mins | experimental | audio

written, directed, cinematography, sound recorded and edited by Beverley Callow, acted by Marilyn Gotlieb, Charmaine Bingwa & Steven Cornish

an attack experienced through the eyes and ears of a very old woman

 

The Salt Maiden (2014) 15 mins | mystery

written by Donna Cameron, produced and directed by Beverley Callow, acted by Renee Lim, Cameron Sowden and Sandra Campbell

filmed on Coochiemudlo Island, Moreton Bay, Queensland

a woman moves to an island to overcome her fear of drowning, but to cross the strait she must put her life in the hands of the ferryman

Cannes Court Métrage, 2014
Lines In the Sand Festival, Minjerribah, 2014
Actors Anonymous Film Festival, Sydney, 2014
Girls Together Outrageously, Melbourne, 2014
Trispace Gallery Film, London, 2014
Port Stephens Film Festival, 2014 – Best Short Film, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography
Coasties Film Festival, 2015 – Best Film
Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival, France 2015

 

Happy Anniversary (2010) 4 mins | mobile phone | drama

writer Nicky Davis, director Stephen Carnell, producer Beverley Callow, actor Kate Buchanan

a women films a video message to explain why she isn’t at her parents 50th wedding anniversary

screened at a forum at the NSW Parliament House to change legislation to allow victims of sexual abuse to receive fairer compensation from the Catholic Church, 2012

Official selection – Mobile Screenfest Sydney, 2010 – Best Actress
Official Selection – Movil Film Fest Spain 2010 – Best Script & Best Actress Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market France, 2012
Official Selection – Festival International des Très Courts in Paris, 2012 and screened in 70 cities internationally
Official Selection – Best Film Festival, 2016

Other recent

Byron Bay International Film Festival (2018-2021) Colab_Create Producer (Virtual Reality), Make Diversity Reality Producer, Talks Producer
Renew Fest (2021) Film Crew Director & Interview Director
The Heist (2020) (SUFF Take 48) Director
Emma’s Farm (2020) Director
Generation Intervention (2020) Director
Newkind Festival (2019) Interview Director
Tall Stories Film Festival (2018) Creator
Escape By Sea (2018) Line Producer
Yellow Spit Fish or: How I Learned To Dog Whistle (2018) Producer
The Investment Series (2017) Editor Intern
Blue Murder: Killer Cop (2016) Production Attachment
Hacksaw Ridge (2015-2016) Production Secretary 2nd Unit

Australian Director’s Guild
Screenworks
Women in Film and Television New South Wales (2015-2016) – Committee Member
Women in Film and Television Victoria (2011-2013) – Board Member