Bachelor of Arts (Film and Television); Television Directing, 1987
In the years since graduating from AFTRS, Richard Jasek’s television directing has come to comprise some of Australia’s best known titles such as City Homicide, McLeods Daughters, Neighbours, Heartbreak High, Blue Heelers, Stingers, Home & Away, Murder Call, Something in the Air, All Saints, The Secret Life of Us, as well as various documentaries and children’s television.
Richard’s passion for arts and sciences is evident in his documentary work, including biopics Driven to Diffraction (2008), and Microbes to Macrobes (2011). Making A Mark (Adelaide Film Festival, 2017), follows a selection of emerging artists as they vie for the inaugural Ramsay Art Prize, and won an Australian Director’s Guild award for Documentary in 2019. Getting Their Acts Together (ABC, 2020) follows Adelaide Festival joint artistic directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield over 18 months as they curate the 2020 festival.
Richard has lectured widely in Australia and around the world, and serves on boards and committees of arts and philanthropic organisations including The James and Diana Ramsay Foundation, the Adelaide Film Festival, and The Helpmann Academy.
He is currently undertaking a PhD at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia.
AFTRS HIGHLIGHT
The highlight of my time at AFTRS was studying under the legendary Bill Fitzwater [1935 – 2021], who ran the then-television workshop. Inspirational and creatively brilliant, he opened my eyes to the possibilities of the small screen at a time television was regarded as the poor, cheap cousin of cinema. My graduate work was an all blue-screen adaptation of a Stravinsky music drama, that went on to win a number of awards and got me started in my career. It would have been impossible but for Bill’s encouragement and creative nurturing.
CAREER HIGHLIGHT
The highlight of my career to date?…that’s hard to answer. Filmmaking is such a precarious and unreliable field you have to celebrate all the small victories. I’ve just loved having the chance to work, whether as a director for hire on mainstream commercial dramas, or my own small, arthouse docos. It’s especially satisfying when one of your passion projects sees the light of day. Every time you start on one of those there are a thousand reasons it won’t/can’t happen, and only one or two reasons it can. So I’m happy when anything I do makes it in front of an audience, and hopefully contributes something to them.