About A/Professor Deane Williams' Fellowship research

For this Fellowship, A/Professor Williams seeks to produce the first substantial and systematic account of the little researched life and work of Ron Maslyn Williams (1911-1999), a prodigiously talented Australian film-maker as well as an internationally esteemed musician, radio writer, theatre director, journalist, photographer, novelist and non-fiction author. 

Ron Maslyn Williams' films won many prizes including a Gold Medal at the Venice Biennale and the Florence Film Festival.

Along with John Bishop and Ruth Alexander, Williams founded the Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO). In tribute to his AYO legacy the Maslyn Williams Chamber Orchestra was established.

He won the FAW Christina Stead Award in 1988 and the Douglas Stewart prize in the 1989 NSW Literary Awards and was an Emeritus Fellow of the Literature Board of the Australia Council.

Utilising a cultural network approach, this project will create knowledge about Williams, one of the most important cultural figures of the post-war years in Australia and the international cultural milieu he actively participated in. 

About A/Professor Deane Williams

Deane Williams is Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies, Monash University.

His research interests include the essay film, Australian documentary film history, and south-south cinemas.

He was Foundation Editor of Studies in Documentary Film until 2017 and is the author and editor of many articles and books, most recently Beyond the Essay Film: Subjectivity, Textuality and Technology (with Julia Vassilieva) and Screen Culture in the Global South: Cinema at the End of the World (with Antonio Traverso and Keyan G. Tomaselli) and is currently editing the Handbook of Documentary (with Kate Nash).

About National Library of Australia Fellowships

The National Library of Australia Fellowships program offers researchers an opportunity to undertake a 12-week residency at the Library. This program is supported by generous donors and bequests.