George (Miliotis) Miller recognised at AFI Awards

	Photo: E. Santos

Fotis Kapetopoulos

DR GEORGE (Miliotis) Miller received the Global Achievement Award at the AFI Awards for his internationally recognised and successful body of work. George Miliotis (Miller) was born in Chinchilla, Queensland, to Dimitri Miliotis, and Evangelia Balloyoulo. His mother's family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor, and his farther was from the Greek island of Kythera. His father anglicised his surname to Miller when in Australia. Dr George Miller studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne but decided to abandon medicine for his passion filmmaking. Dr George Miller put Australia on the international map with the Mad Max series, The Witches of Eastwick, Babe, and recently with Academy Award winning Happy Feet. Dr Miller's work has been nominated for Oscars many times. He is also known for his TV series, The Dismissal and The Cowra Breakout. Dr Miller also produced Dead Calm, Bangkok Hilton and Vietnam, all starring Nicole Kidman, which were instrumental in the development of her career. Dr Miller's Happy Feet commercial success augmented the low box office returns of otherwise critically well received Australian films in 2007.

Dr Miller does not feel ethnicity is a barrier in the Australian film industry, as it once was, "Greek Australians and other [culturally diverse] filmmakers and actors have made their mark. The blockage is Australian culture at large, we are simply not making enough films".

He added, "I was in Greece and as a nation of only 10 million people the Greek film industry is doing well producing more films than we do in Australia"

His belief in the new digital age was vindicated with Happy Feet winning an Academy for best animation, "Australia has some of the best digital capacities in the world we need to support and encourage."

The need for more integration in the Australian film and generally cultural sector, was evident for Dr Miller, "We need to get out of silos and become integrated in the brave new world of digital filmmaking," he said.

Asked if the government is doing enough to support our industry, he said, "I think its good that the government is extending the producer's rebate into digital filmmaking."

Dr George Miller's have reflected Aesopian moral fables as in Babe, or Happy Feet and acerbic satire in Witches of Eastwick, or Homeric myth making in Mad Max, when asked if his Hellenic sensibilities impacted on his work said, "Sure, I am story teller who comes from a family of story tellers, my father left Kythera and brought with him an incredible array of stories, stories which moved from one generation to another. When I go back to Kythera I understand the impact of stories, fable and myths is part of our [Hellenic] psyche"

Dr Miller has been confirmed by Warner Bros. as the director of Justice League of America, a large-scale superhero epic featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a host of others, "The Justice League superheroes are in fact related to ancient Greek gods and that will be my reference point."

The film will showcase a detailed blending of live-action, motion-capture, and CGI animation. Dr George Miller has also confirmed he will direct the fourth Mad Max film, only known as Road Fury.

George Miller, (Miliotis), is one of Australia's most internationaly recognised filmmakers. Yet, he is part of a story telling tradition which extends to Greek Antiquity, the only difference over the few thousand years, are the tools and modalities he uses, the essence remains the same.