Jane Campion is Australasia’s leading auteur director. As recipient of the Palme d’Or (1993), the Silver Lion (1990) and an Academy Award (1994), she is also one of the most successful female directors in the world. (1) These statements are not made innocently. They are intended to draw attention to issues of nationality, of auteurism and art cinema, and of gender.

Third Take is a valuable historical resource and an insight into contemporary filmmaking both in Australia and overseas. This is the second instalment in Raffaele Caputo and Geoff Burton's series of Australian film-makers "talking", based on the model of John Boorman's Projections series. In their first volume, Second Take, Caputo and Burton presented a series of essays, interviews and previously-published articles that profiled, or gave voice to, a dozen Australian directors, including Gillian Armstrong and Jane Campion. One of the improvements of Third Take is its diversification of the label "film-makers" to include contributions from three cinematographers (John Seale, Don McAlpine, Vince Monton), one actor (Bill Hunter), one producer (David Elfick), and one scriptwriter (Bob Ellis), as well as six directors (Phillip Noyce, Peter Weir, Rolf de Heer, Andrew Dominik, Curtis Levy and Dennis O'Rourke, who is interviewed by Martha Ansara) plus a reprint from Ken G. Hall's Australian Film: The Inside Story. The need for dialogue and insight into the film-making craft, identified by the editors in their introduction to Second Take (6), is answered in Third Take by this inclusion of craftsmen [they are all men] other than the director, an important corrective to the auteurist preoccupations of academic criticism.

Described as a psychosexual thriller, Jane Campion's In the cut (2003) explores the intense sexual relationship between a creative writing teacher and a detective, set against the backdrop of a serial killer investigation in New York city.

Two outsiders tentatively form a relationship in this 'romantic political' thriller set against a post-9/11 Australian backdrop, but the pieces of the story don't always fit together, writes Fincina Hopgood.

The series Australian Screen Classics is an exciting initiative from Currency Press. Jointly published with the Australian Film Commission's National Film and Sound Archive, this series recalls the British Film Institute's acclaimed Film Classics and Modern Classics guides to individual films. Under the stewardship of series editor Dr Jane Mills from the Australian Film. Television and Radio School - these neat, concise studies of single films make a rich contribution to Australian film culture that belies their small size. Recognising the role that cinema plays in our cultural heritage. the series pairs iconic Australian films with some of our leading writers and thinkers in culture, criticism and politics. These have included film critic Adrian Martin writing on the Mad Max movies: playwright Louis Novvra exploring Walkabout; novelist Chrislos Tsiolkas revisiting The Devil's Playground: and historian Henry Reynolds critiquing The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Two recent additions to the series are The PianoAlvin Purple, by feminist cultural commentator Catharine Lumby.

The portrayal of mental illness in film reflects changing community attitudes, writes Fincina Hopgood.

MOTHERHOOD, migration and madness. These are the shared themes of two Australian films, The Home Song Stories, and Romulus, My Father, released earlier this year. Both films, based on true stories, portray the point of view of a little boy dealing with a mentally unstable mother. They try to understand this difficult, dysfunctional figure, without demonising her.

Jane Campion's 1990 adaptation of Janet Frame's autobiography An Angel at My Table invites close examination of one of the most pervasive and persistent stereotypes of mental illness: the mad genius, which assumes a close and necessary connection between artistic or intellectual achievement and psychological dysfunction. In this essay, I explore the social and medical discourses that collude in the construction of the mad genius stereotype. Through a close analysis of Campion's film, I examine the various ways in which the afflicted protagonist, Janet Frame (Kerry Fox), is stigmatised and constructed as 'different' during the course of her life. I also draw upon Frame's own comments in her autobiography, which illuminate her ambivalent and conflicted response to being labelled a 'mad writer'. Campion's film critically engages with mental illness stereotypes, revealing both the attractions and limiting effects of stereotypical discourse for the person constructed as different. Campion ensures that Janet's perceived 'difference' from those around her does not prevent the spectator from sharing Janet's emotions and sympathising with her dilemmas throughout the film. Indeed, An Angel at My Table challenges the discursive construction of Janet as different and uncovers the universal in her heroine's experiences of childhood and adolescence, securing the spectator's emotional identification with Janet's journey towards an independently defined selfhood.

Water (2005), the final instalment in Deepa Mehta's 'elemental trilogy', has had in the director's own words, a tumultuous birth. It has taken five years for this third film in the series, following Fire (1996) and Earth (1998), to reach the screen, and it is described as 'one of the most turbulent experiences in filmmaking history'. Water represents the maturation of Mehta as a director capable of marrying political filmmaking with melodrama in order to harness the power of emotional engagement for consciousness-raising.

Like its precursor, Womenvision is a diverse, wide-ranging collection of essays on Australian women behind and in front of the camera (and, today, the computer). This diversity lies in the range of topics covered and the variety of approaches and writing styles employed. All forms of moving image production are covered – from feature films and television to short films, documentaries, animation, computer games and dance films. The writers include industry practitioners, critics, activists, board members, teachers and researchers, both new to the field and established authorities. Indeed, some contributors wear several hats in their careers, combining their own experience as filmmakers with research and teaching or advocacy. Their writings range from historical surveys to thematic analyses of recent films by Australian women; from in-depth studies of Australian auteurs (Monica Pellizzari; Ann Turner; Tracey Moffatt) and single texts (Clara Law's Floating Life (Australia 1996); Jane Campion's The Piano (Australia/France/New Zealand 1993)) to deeply affecting personal accounts and reflections on women's film-making practice. This is a collection that will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary Australian cinema and/or women's moving image production, whether working in the industry or in academia.