Bill Bennett

Australian writer-director Bill Bennett has been a hands-on filmmaker from the start: for his first project, the 1983 television drama "Cattle King," Bennett wrote, produced, directed, and even provided still photography--an ambitious feat that he replicated in his subsequent two projects. With the screening of his next two films, "Backlash" and "Malpractice," at the Cannes Film Festival later that decade, Bennett cemented his position as an established Australian filmmaker. "Cattle King" was also Bennett's first of several collaborations with actress Jennifer Cluff, whom he would later marry. In the crime thriller "Kiss or Kill," Cluff played a minor supporting role, although her more significant contribution to the film was as both casting director and producer. To American audiences, Bennett's most recognizable work is the 1996 romantic comedy "Two if by Sea," which starred Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary; the latter actor also co-wrote. Bennett's sparse output in the 2000s includes the comedy "The Nugget," starring Eric Bana (before he became a Hollywood star) as a working-class man who suddenly becomes rich, and the 2010 horror thriller "Uninhabited," Bennett's effort to bring supernatural terror to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.