Peter Weir is an Australian filmmaker who is widely regarded as one of the best currently working in Hollywood.
And he is back in the director's chair this week with his new movie The Way Back, his first movie since Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World back in 2003.
Despite studying law at university Weir joined Sydney television station ATN-7 when he graduated in the mid sixties as he worked on The Mavis Bramston Show.
He went on to work for Film Australia and he began producing shorts such as Whatever Happened to Green Valley and Three Directions in Australian Pop Music.
In 1975 he made his feature film debut with The Cars That Ate Paris before going on to his breakthrough project in his home country with Panic at Hanging Rock a year later.
Over the next ten years he continued to make movies in his native Australia including The Last Wave and Gallipoli, two of his biggest hits in those early years.
Gallipoli starred a young Mel Gibson and followed two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.
His first American movie came in 1985 when he directed Witness, which was the first of two collaborations with actor Harrison Ford.
A young Amish boy, visiting Philadelphia with his widowed mother, witnesses a murder. When the detective on the case discovers a police cover up, he realizes his, the boy's and the mother's lives are in jeopardy.
He hides out in Amish country, living amongst the community and having to abide by their peaceful customs.
Things get more complicated when he falls in love with the young widow. But, soon the idyllic life is shattered when the villains discover his whereabouts.
Witness brought Weir his first Best Director Oscar nomination and he had truly arrived.
1989 brought further success for Weir as he directed Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society - another Best Director nod came Weir's way as well as a nomination for Best Picture.
Green Card and Fearless were next for Weir before he brought us The Truman Show in 1998, which starred Jim Carrey.
The whole world is watching, literally, every time Truman Burbank makes the slightest move. Unbeknownst to him his entire life has been an unending soap opera for consumption by the rest of the world.
And everyone he knows--including his mother, his wife, and his best friend--is really an actor, paid to be part of his life.
Made on a budget of $60 million the movie was a big box office hit as it went on to take in excess of $264 million worldwide - as well as being a hit with the critics.
Another Best Director nod came Weir's way - losing out to Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World was the last time a Peter Weir movie graced the big screen, that was back in 2003, when he teamed up with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.
Yet again the movie was a hit at the box office and was raved about by the critics. Ten Oscar nominations came the film's way including Best Picture and Best Director - this time losing out to Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
The Way Back sees weir assemble an impressive cast of Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess, Mark Strong, Saoirse Ronan and reuniting him with Ed Harris, they worked together on The Truman Show.
The movie is an adaptation of the novel by Slawomir Rawicz and follows a group of soldiers who escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940.
The Way Back is out now.
Female First Helen Earnshaw