By any standards, apart perhaps from box-office takings, 2009 was a banner year for Australian films. There were Balibo and Samson and Delilah, Disgrace and Last Ride, but what is really impressive is that three of the most memorable entries in this memorable year were directed by women, in an industry where direction has long been dominated by men.

I don’t want to make any special, essentialist point about what’s attracting female directors: male directors have been just as often drawn to the conflicts that rend families (think of such recent Australian films as Steve Jacobs’ Disgrace, Tony Ayres’ The Home Song Stories, Glendyn Ivin’s Last Ride, Dean Murphy’s Charlie & Boots). I just want to celebrate three very significant films by female directors. On the international scene, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker has won and been nominated for numerous awards, and neither in this nor her earlier films has the family been the site of her chief interest. Perhaps film directing is no longer a male preserve, and female directors are not to be confined by the parameters of what used to be patronisingly characterised as ‘the women’s picture’.