WOMAN OF INFLUENCE INGRID WEIR

While for most children, tagging along with their parents to the office might mean being relegated to a corner with some highlighters or photocopying their hands, for Ingrid Weir, joining her father, the iconic movie director Peter Weir, AM, at work meant filling in as an extra on set. “I was an Amish girl in Witness walking across a field,” recalls Ingrid, who would have been 12 when the Harrison Ford-fronted film was released.

The bright-eyed young Ingrid revelled in the “circus-like energy” of film sets. Her father was a pioneer of the local industry (his most notable work is perhaps the dreamy 1975 production of , along with 1981’s , among several other iconic Australian movies), and he went on to direct a number of international films including and , receiving several Golden Globe and Oscar nominations in the process. It meant Ingrid got to dabble in set design early on: as a teenager, she helped design one of the student plays depicted in . It was very much a family affair: her mother, Wendy Stites, though now retired, is a celebrated costume and production designer, having worked alongside her husband on , , and . Stites won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar for her costume design on , which Peter also directed. Recalls Ingrid: “I grew up with that: looking at fabrics, telling stories, going into a sort of magical, fun world.”