Owen Beck(I)
- Director
- Writer
- Editor
I was born in 1964 on a small island named Daru, off the south coast of Papua New Guinea. We moved to Port Moresby when I was less than a year old. I remember PNG as a place of great freedom and adventure.
I moved to Perth, Western Australia, as an eight-year-old, where I was raised on a goat farm and attended very working-class schools.
My teenage years were spent chasing surf, skateboarding and playing music. As an adult, I designed surfing wet-suits and clothes, played music, studied film, built an Eco-resort in the Cambodian jungle and made films.
I won a number of awards during my 'film student' years, then set up a small post-production facility called Central Editors. I thought I lacked life-experience to make really great films, so decided I should wait until I was 50 years old to make my first feature film.
After 12 years of small-time production, playing music and teaching media, I returned to continue my studies, and achieved 1st Class Honours with a short documentary set in Meulaboh, Aceh, after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that killed 300,000 people. Meulaboh was the closest town to the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami. An Other Voice from Aceh explored the ways film can be used during recovery from trauma. I used the film to raise money for bikes, to help kids get to school, and returned on the second anniversary of the tsunami with 270 bikes.
Another 10 years passed, and I began my PhD while living in the Cambodian jungle, where I had built and run an Eco-resort with my wife. My PhD explored representations of Cambodian masculinity, and used filmmaking processes as a research methodology. My main submission was a feature film called, Bngvel, which I finished editing the week I turned 50.
Bngvel cost $20,000 to make and won Best Direction Long Form and Best Cinematography Long Form against films that cost millions to make at the West Australian Screen Awards 2016.
I love the entire process of making films.
I moved to Perth, Western Australia, as an eight-year-old, where I was raised on a goat farm and attended very working-class schools.
My teenage years were spent chasing surf, skateboarding and playing music. As an adult, I designed surfing wet-suits and clothes, played music, studied film, built an Eco-resort in the Cambodian jungle and made films.
I won a number of awards during my 'film student' years, then set up a small post-production facility called Central Editors. I thought I lacked life-experience to make really great films, so decided I should wait until I was 50 years old to make my first feature film.
After 12 years of small-time production, playing music and teaching media, I returned to continue my studies, and achieved 1st Class Honours with a short documentary set in Meulaboh, Aceh, after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that killed 300,000 people. Meulaboh was the closest town to the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami. An Other Voice from Aceh explored the ways film can be used during recovery from trauma. I used the film to raise money for bikes, to help kids get to school, and returned on the second anniversary of the tsunami with 270 bikes.
Another 10 years passed, and I began my PhD while living in the Cambodian jungle, where I had built and run an Eco-resort with my wife. My PhD explored representations of Cambodian masculinity, and used filmmaking processes as a research methodology. My main submission was a feature film called, Bngvel, which I finished editing the week I turned 50.
Bngvel cost $20,000 to make and won Best Direction Long Form and Best Cinematography Long Form against films that cost millions to make at the West Australian Screen Awards 2016.
I love the entire process of making films.