Tim Burstall

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Tim Burstall AM was an English Australian film director, writer and producer, best known for hit Australian movie Alvin Purple.

A key figure in Australian postwar cinema, Burstall was instrumental in rebuilding the Australian film industry at a time when it had been effectively dead for over a decade. He created groundbreaking Australian films including Stork, Alvin Purple, End Play, Eliza Fraser, The Last of the Knucklemen and the 1987 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence novel Kangaroo.

Burstall's films featured early appearances by many legendary Australian actors including Jack Thompson, Bruce Spence, Jacki Weaver, Alvin star Graeme Blundell, John Waters and Judy Davis. Burstall's wife, Betty Burstall, an important figure in her own right, founded the pioneering La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in the late 1960s, with which Tim was involved.

Speaking just after Burstall's death, Williamson said that Burstall "couldn't stomach" Australia's lack of a film industry. "He was determined to do something about it and he had the energy and spirit to do it. was a very important cultural figure: highly intelligent, widely read, with a succinct and often highly controversial opinion on everything."