Hi

I’m Jane Freebury, writer

Welcome

Arts journalist, film critic

My byline first appeared in 1987 with a column in a national affairs monthly, Australian Society, discussing the latest Australian films and developments in the local industry. During the 1990s, I also taught cinema and media and cultural studies at university, initiated a festival of Australian short film, and while resident in Indonesia continued writing on cinema for the English-language newspaper, The Jakarta Post.

My work since I returned has been regularly commissioned by The Canberra Times, for which I have written on a weekly basis for 25 years. I have recently been commission by the Guardian Australia, and have freelanced over the years for Metro, Metro Education, Anne Summers Reports, The Australian, Cinema Papers, Filmnews, Media Information Australia, Australian-Canadian Studies and Black & White magazine.

My film reviews also appear on Rotten Tomatoes, as an individually approved critic.

I have been a member of the Film Critics Circle of Australia since 1990, and am a current member of the Canberra Critics Circle.

Author

My book, Dancing to His Song: the Singular Cinema of Rolf de Heer, a comprehensive study of the oeuvre of the Australian auteur, was published by Currency Press and Currency House, Sydney, in 2015. Available in paper and ebook.

Reviewed as ‘both scholarly and reader-friendly. Rolf de Heer is ‘lucky to have found so eloquent a chronicler who, without gush and with critical rigour, so firmly fixes his achievement’ —  Inside Story . Its ‘achievement lies in part in how it explores ‘the contradictions in de Heer’s artistic identity’. The analysis is ‘often astute, teasing out how the complexity of de Heer’s audiovisual rhetoric belies the simplicity of his themes’ — Australian Book Review

Professional writer

During the decade 2002-2012, I worked in government corporate communications as a speechwriter for Australian Government ministers with portfolios in industry, innovation, small business, science, education, employment, tourism, resources and agriculture, fisheries and forestry.

© Jane Freebury     

All articles here are copyright