Nigel Buesst
b. April 30, 1938, Melbourne, Australia.

BIOGRAPHY:   After graduating B Com from Melbourne Uni in 1960, Nigel Buesst sought work in the British film industry. He worked at Shepperton Studios as an assistant editor and on various other freelance assignments before returning to Melbourne in 1962 to work for the ABC at Ripponlea.

Since then he's worked in various capacities, as film editor, cameraman, sound recordist, producer and director. He was particularly active in the '60s Carlton scene, made manifest in the doco Carlton + Godard = Cinema.

He spent thirteen years as a lecturer at Swinburne Film and TV Dept. and five years as Director of the St Kilda Film Festival. He currently operates a small video editing establishment in North Carlton, the Sunrise Picture Co., and retains an undiminished enthusiasm for the medium in all its forms.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW:   Nigel Buesst started out with a biopic about Squizzy Taylor and has returned to the form on several occasions, fascinated perhaps by the excitement and variety of other people's lives. Recent subjects have been Benny Featherstone, a memorable bandleader of the '30s, and Gerry Humphrys, the lead singer of The Loved Ones. There have been numerous shorts, mostly on 16mm and in collaboration with others, and a few features, the most ambitious being Compo in 1987. This filmed version of a play by Abe Pogos was screened at the 1989 MIFF and sold to BBC television. Nigel's main influences have been filmmakers who have achieved magic on minimal budgets, ranging from the British Free Cinema movement through to the French New Wave, to Andy Warhol in New York, Raul Ruiz, Werner Herzog, even the Dogma crowd. But he concedes that magic on any budget is alluring, like Mulholland Drive or Punch-drunk Love.

FILMOGRAPHY:

	Bonjour Balwyn

Fun Radio (1963, 12 mins, B&W, 16mm)
The wonderful world of 3UZ radio.

The Twentieth (1966, 27 mins, B&W, 16mm)
A jazz convention in Sydney.

The Rise and Fall of Squizzy Taylor (1968, 50 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Melbourne's Napoleon of crime.

Dead Easy (1970, 50 mins, col, 16mm)
Melbourne's early mass murderers.

Bonjour Balwyn (1971, 55 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Short feature about a magazine publisher.

The Destruction of St Patricks (1971, 8 mins, B&W, 16mm)
About the preservation of our heritage.

	Come Out Fighting

Come Out Fighting (1972, 50 mins, col, 16mm)
Short feature about an Aboriginal boxer.

Daryl Turner Film (1975, 12 mins, col, 16mm)
The work of a talented young artist.

Jacka VC (1977, 45 mins, col, 16mm)
Doco on First WW hero and St Kilda Mayor.

Death of a Princess "Part Two" (1980, 6 mins, col, 16mm)
Satire on a news event.

Jazz Scrapbook (1983, 70 mins, col, 16mm)
History of early Australian jazz.

Compo (1987, 82 mins, col, 35mm)
Comedy on life at a workers compensation office.

Benny Featherstone - Prince of Good Fellows (1996, 66 mins, col, video)
Doco on a musician.

	Gerry Humphrys - The Loved One

Black Sheep Gather No Moss (1997, 12 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Historical fantasy.

Global Village (1998, 14 mins, col, video)
Experimental, mocks the urge to communicate.

Gerry Humphrys - The Loved One (2000, 66 mins, col, video)
Doco on '60s muso.

Carlton + Godard = Cinema
(2003, 145 mins, col, video)
Recalls the Carlton filmmakers of the '60s.

Darwin Harbour (2010, 60 mins, col, video)
The early days of the city of Darwin

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY:

The Oxford Companion to Australian Film by Brian McFarlane and Ina Bertrand, 1999.

Carlton + Godard = Cinema: An Interview with Nigel Buesst, by Jake Wilson, Senses of Cinema, Issue 27, July-Aug 2003.

Sunrise Picture Co - Nigel Buesst's website

Contact Nigel Buesst

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