Director of Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli celebrated for defining Australian culture and ‘global influence on craft, form and storytelling’

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Peter Weir, the director of Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli, was presented with the inaugural lifetime achievement award from the Australian Film Television and Radio School on Wednesday night.

At an event hosted by Sydney film festival, the AFTRS council chair, Rachel Perkins, called the now-retired 81-year-old director and screenwriter “the greatest film-maker this country has produced”.