Nicolette Freeman

Associate Professor Nicolette Freeman is a key figure in the School of Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts, part of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne. She served as Head of Film and Television from 2013 to 2018. Freeman holds Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of Technology Sydney and the Australian Film Television and Radio School, where she specialized in cinematography. Her extensive career as a cinematographer, documentary director, and producer includes notable works such as Eclipse of the Man-Made Sun (1991), Leaping Off the Edge (2000), the documentary series The Lifestyle Experts (2005), and the omnibus film How The World is Made (2009), which features segments like At the Shrine shot at the Victorian Shrine of Remembrance.

Freeman's research specializations lie in film studies, the assessment of creative screen-based work within academia, and the interplay between documentary filmmaking and poetic forms. She authored 'From Aristotle to the Avant-garde - the conundrum of assessing creative work in the context of wider academia,' proposing process-based evaluation to address subjectivity in grading innovative outputs. In 2016, as Head of Australia's oldest film school—originating in 1966 at Swinburne Institute of Technology—she curated and oversaw the public release of 50 student films marking the VCA School of Film and Television's golden anniversary, via a digital archive project. This initiative spotlighted alumni contributions to Australian cinema, including early works by Gillian Armstrong (The Roof Needs Mowing, 1971) and films leading to successes like Mad Max (1979), My Brilliant Career (1979), Muriel’s Wedding (1994), and The Dressmaker (2015). Freeman published companion articles in Pursuit by the University of Melbourne, such as 'Armchair travel: 50 years of Melbourne films,' 'Five decades of films and the city that inspired them,' and 'Film in the 2010s and beyond ... what's on next?,' examining the school's impact on national identity, cultural shifts, and future screen narratives. Her leadership and scholarly contributions have significantly influenced film education and the preservation of Melbourne's filmmaking heritage.

Professional Email: nfreeman@unimelb.edu.au