2016 Honorary Award Recipient: Baz Luhrmann


Baz Luhrmann has captured popular and critical imagination internationally with a diverse range of award-winning projects in film, opera, theatre, and music.

Currently Luhrmann is writing, producing, and directing The Get Down, an original series for Netflix. Set in 1970s New York, The Get Down is a mythic saga of how a battered city at the brink of bankruptcy gave birth to hip-hop, punk and disco – told through the lives and music of the South Bronx kids who changed the city and the world, forever.

Earlier works include the Oscar® winning 3-D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (2013), the ambitious epic Australia (2008), the Oscar® winning Moulin Rouge! (2001), the boldly luminous version of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), and the celebrated Strictly Ballroom (1992), awarded the Prix De Jeunesse at Cannes.

The soundtrack albums for The Great Gatsby, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge!, executive produced by Luhrmann, have sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

Between films, Luhrmann’s 2002 Broadway production of Puccini’s La Bohème garnered seven Tony® Awards, including Best Revival and Best Director for Luhrmann, winning the Tony® Award for Best Scenic Design.

Luhrmann also produced the groundbreaking worldwide campaigns for Chanel No. 5, starring Nicole Kidman in 2004, and Giselle Bundchen in 2014.

In 1997, Luhrmann married Catherine Martin, his long-time creative collaborator. The same year, they founded Bazmark, an innovative multi-media company with the motto “A life lived in fear is a life half lived.”

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