Miriam Pickard joins the judges for the Spiritus Short Film Award

04 Oct 2024 - by Liz Jakimow

The Spiritus Short Film Award is delighted to announce that Miriam Pickard has joined our list of prestigious judges for this year's award.

Miriam Pickard is an Australian based performer, educator and ceremony-maker. In her practice she explores regenerative mythology as sources of stories, laws and patterns which contribute to individual and societal health. Miriam focuses on creating immersive and participatory mythic story events and designing ceremonial experiences marking beginnings, endings and transitions for individuals and groups.

She graduated Charles Sturt University in 2005 with a BA in Theatre/Media and received a scholarship to complete theatre training with Master Clown teacher Philippe Gaulier in France. Miriam began her European mythic-studies apprenticeship in 2014, in creative partnership and collaboration with leading cultural mythologists, jungian analysts, artists and storytellers in theatre and music. Her arts practice is also woven into and informed by a 10 year inter-cultural collaboration and facilitation with the Warlpiri-Aboriginal Women’s Dance camp project in central desert Australia from 2010-2020. Through this project Miriam gained a deep respect for the healing power of story, dance and song and witnessed the necessity of intergenerational relationships for cultural health and wellbeing.

It was such an honour and delight to join the judging panel for the Canberra Short Film Spiritus category. I have seen so many wonderful Spiritus films and it brings me a lot of joy to appreciate other people's creative expression. The values and criteria for the ACC&C Spiritus film prize are rich creative parameters for artists to tell a story within. I have more hope for our collective future after watching the films, as I hope audiences might after seeing the final selection.