In Conversation with
Rebecca O’Brien
16.06.2025 words by Kate Middeleer
Meet Rebecca O’Brien, a filmmaker and director, based here in the Northern Rivers. Her career includes work as director on Bump and ABC TV’s comedy Austin. Mid-morning last Tuesday, we shared our love of Fleabag; our affinity for the raw, the messy, the dark. We spoke a bit about what we’ve learned from slowing down, and we shared some tea.
She’s originally from New Zealand, she tells me after hopping off her bike, while we wait for our chais to brew. Rebecca moved to Australia at eighteen and promptly got her start in the film industry in Melbourne, as a runner and in the Art Department. Not long after, she made the move to Sydney to study film at AFTRS, and it wasn’t long after that she first uttered, “ooh, directing is fun”. From there it was a slow and steady process of building experience, cracking open doors, and growing confidence.
“It took me a long time after I left film school,” she explained, “to actually get to do what I wanted to do. The thing that really helped was getting funding to make a short film–I actually just heard that Screen Australia is reintroducing funding for shorts, so that’s fantastic”.
“As a director you really need to show that you can direct–that you have a unique voice and style,” she says. “It’s like painting: once people actually see your work, and see that you have some talent, it can be a big leg-up into directing larger projects.”
The short film was her breakthrough, leading her to work for the ABC for a large chunk of time at the start, segment producing, which, she explained to me, is directing and producing segments for unscripted TV shows. It wasn’t until an opportunity through the Australian Director’s Guild that the door opened onto what she really wanted to do: drama.
“I really was skirting around what I wanted to do for a long long time,” she says. “It’s like I was too scared to do the thing I was really passionate about. It was probably a confidence thing”.
The director’s guild opportunity, designed in part to give up-and-coming females more experience in the director’s chair, came in the form of the opportunity to direct one episode of television. The set-up director would take the chosen participant under their wing. In her instance, Rebecca directed one episode of ‘The Unlisted’ – a kids’ drama for Netflix and the ABC, which led to a nomination for Best Director at the Australia Director’s Guild Awards.
“So all of a sudden, you’ve done the thing, you’ve got proof you can do it” she says. “That was a big shift, really. In terms of getting other work”.
We go on to talk of our shared home here in the Northern Rivers. After having lived twenty-five years in Sydney, she gives me some insight into how finding opportunities in the industry has panned out, without the skyscrapers and train stations.
“That was probably where Screenworks came in,” she explains. “It was actually quite amazing because I had been living in Sydney for twenty-five years, I’d gone to film school, I knew people in the industry. But I had never felt the sense of community that I do here, and Screenworks is a big part of that”
We talk of the support garnered in the small, coastal, creative Northern Rivers.
“It wasn't something I was expecting or knew about,” she goes on to say. “Practical support, and emotional and creative support”.
Moving to Byron has been, on the whole, fantastic, but some aspects are hard to get used to. “My partner Jeremy and I would always laugh about its pace–you go to get a coffee, you go to do something, and ‘everyone’s always on Byron time’! And it can be really annoying, because you have to wait forever!”
She tells me how she’s realized that, in reality, when you have to wait–take a step back, take a breath–that’s the upside, something you don’t often do in a big city.
“People have time to have a coffee with you,” she says.
Currently, Rebecca is working on Austin, a comedy with English comedians Sally Phillips and Ben Miller, and Michael Theo from Love on the Spectrum.
“It’s lovely to rock up to work and be laughing all day,” she says.
She goes on to tell me that those involved in Austin will have a panel on Regional to Global this year. This Wednesday the 18th through Friday, Screenworks will be hosting the three day event in Lennox, giving attendees a chance to explore workshops, panels, and networking events.
I go on to ask her what’s next, if you could be working on anything, what would it be?
“Right this second?” she asks.
Yes.
“Probably a feature film. There’s no money really, in making a feature film. Necessarily. But when you direct a feature film, you put your stamp out there,” she says. “You go: this is who I am, this is what I’m interested in talking about.”
She harks back to the Director’s Guild opportunity, the doors that opened when she directed her first episode. The big shifts.
“Making a feature is no mean feat in this climate, so who knows,” she laughs. “You gotta have dreams.”
She tells me that amidst the working and career building, there is always the needling voice–especially when she’s away on set–reminding her how much she misses her family and being a mum at home.
“But at least I’m showing my daughter what it means to be in the world, following your dreams.”
She tells me it’s a balancing act, she’s learning. She explains that filmmaking can be like buying lotto tickets, but you’ve gotta go for it, because if the passion’s there, and the zeitgeist is right, you never know your luck. She tells me it took her a moment, but for a long time now, when people ask, “what do you do?”, she answers, “I’m a director”.
Screenworks’ Regional to Global is in Lennox this coming Wednesday, eighteenth of June to Friday the twentieth. More information about the event can be found here.
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