Allanah Zitserman

Allanah Zitserman arrived in Australia in 1980 with her family, as a Russian refugee.^[1] She is now one of the two women in Australia to own a distribution company.

Achievements

Allanah Zitserman started the themed club Barbarella in the late 1990s when she was 18, only for it to become one of Sydney's popular nightspots at the time. At 21 she set up Screen Artists, a film development and production company with Stavros Kazantzidis. Russian Doll was their first collaboration.

The romantic charmer and box office hit, Russian Doll, co-written by Zitserman at 22, went on to earn her an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Original Screenplay. Following this, she wrote and produced Horseplay. Touring the globe with her films, Allanah also event managed international functions at Marrakech and Cannes Film Festivals.

She returned to Australia in 2005, committing her time to both script development and spearheading the world's biggest showcase of Australian Film, the Dungog Film Festival. She was awarded the Australian Film Commission's prestigious Writer's Fellowship in 2006.^[2] In 2007, Zitserman founded the Dungog Film Festival and has been responsible for its overall creative vision since. Also in 2007 Allanah Zitserman became one of the only two women to own a distribution company in Australia, the Australian Film Syndicate (AFS).^[3]

Filmography

• Russian Doll (2001)
• Horseplay (2003)

Education

Allanah Zitserman graduated from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in 1998 with a Bachelor of Business and Communications.^[4] While still in university she both worked as a radio DJ,^[5] and established an events company which ran the nightclub Barbarella for two years.

References