Erika Addis is one of Australia’s most respected cinematographers who, began her film and television career working on local independent productions. After graduating from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 1979, has worked on long form and series documentaries, short and experimental film and television projects.
Although early in her career, Addis was an integral part of the camera sector as camera assistant on feature films: Storm Boy (1976), Cass (1978), Early Frost (1982), and The Year My Voice Broke (1987). Her contributions to Australian documentary filmmaking are also unique and valuable. She worked with director Helen Grace on the short film Serious Undertakings (1983) which deconstructed leading political and cultural ideas through cinematic language, making it one of the first independent films made by women in Australia. In 2005 she worked on the documentary The Hidden History of Homosexual Australia.
Addis, in collaboration with director Alexis Krasilovsky, made Women Behind the Camera in 2007, documenting the lives and work of female cinematographers around the world, from the battlefields to Hollywood and Bollywood. She was closely involved in the making of The Children in the Pictures, 2021, which documents the Australian Federal Police task force Argos tracking down global networks of child abuse perpetrators.
In 2022, Addis became the first female president of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) which was founded in 1958. She has lectured at graduate schools around the world, and her forty-year career inspires young female cinematographers to step in her footsteps. At the panel discussion “Voices Giving Strength”, at the 44th edition of the “Manaki Brothers” International Film Festival, she spoke about the positive feedback caused by her documentary “Brazen Hussies” (2022) among her students. She feared it would not be interesting to them because of the archival recordings, but she was pleasantly surprised by the reactions of the young women, who were unfamiliar with the revolutionary feminist actions of the Women’s Liberation Movement in 60s and 70s in Australia.
Erica Addis served the President of the Women in Film & Television Australia (WIFT) and is involved in the mentorship program, which aims to encourage and support women’s professional careers, promoting gender diversity in the film industry. She recognizes the power and importance of a woman’s perspective behind the camera, in framing, lighting, and in creating meaningful stories, through the power of moving images.
