Heather Ann Croall (born 1967) is an international arts CEO, artistic director and documentary producer, best known for leading

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest; abbr.Sheffield International Documentary Festival or SIDF) is an international documentary Film festival, festival and industry marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The festiv ...

which she grew to be one of the best documentary festivals in the world and

Adelaide Fringe Adelaide Fringe, formerly Adelaide Fringe Festival, is Australia’s biggest arts festival and is the world's second-largest annual arts festival (after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Between ...

where she has taken ticket sales from 500,000 a year to a million each year and won many awards for the festival. She is also known for her work on live music / archive films including The Big Melt, '' From the Sea to the Land Beyond, Girt By Sea, From Scotland With Love, Atomic, Living in Dread and Promise'' In 2024 Heather Croall AM was awarded an Order of Australia for her services to the arts and film. In 2023 Croall graduated from MIT Sloan School of Management. In 2022, Croall won the Festival Management CEO of the Year 2022 (Australia) as voted by CEO Monthly magazine. Heather Croall won the Leadership Award at the 2020 SA Woman Awards and in 2021, Croall was nominated as Leader of the Year in the South Australian Woman of the Year Awards. In 2011 Croall was named one of ''

Realscreen Brunico Communications is a Canadian magazine publishing company."Desktop tabloid publishing firm sports 2 publications and a profit". ''The Globe and Mail'', October 9, 1989. The company specializes primarily in online trade magazines serving medi ...

s annual trailblazers, and in 2013 the

Alliance of Women Film Journalists The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) is a non-profit organization founded in 2006. It is based in New York City and is dedicated to supporting work by and about women in the film industry. The AWFJ is composed of 84 professional female ...

named Croall Ambassador of Women's Films for the year, for her work "to boost documentary film and open opportunities for women filmmakers". In 2014 Croall was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from

Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield station, Sheffield railway station, whil ...

. In 2015 she received Sheffield Doc/Fest's Inspiration Award. In 2021 Croall was awarded the Superhero Award at the DocEdge Festival in New Zealand. In 2023, Croall was listed in Top 10 Most Admired Women Leaders. In February 2015 she left Sheffield Doc/Fest to take up the position of

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and artistic director of the Adelaide Fringe, with her contract there extended until 2027.

Early life

Croall was born in

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

in 1967 and lived in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

until the age of five, when her family emigrated to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

.Julie Farmer, 'Centre Stage', ''First For Business'', 1 June 2013 She grew up in Whyalla, South Australia.

Career

In 1993, Croall set up a production company, Re Angle Pictures, to produce and direct documentaries. In 2020 she Produced and Directed a documentary about her dad and her home town of Whyalla called “Yer Old Faither” it won the audience award at

Adelaide Film Festival The Adelaide Film Festival (AFF, formerly ADLFF) is a film festival usually held for two weeks in mid-October in movie theater, cinemas in Adelaide, South Australia. Originally presented wikt:Special:Search/biennial, biennially in March from 2 ...

and was selected for

Glasgow Film Festival The Glasgow Film Festival is an annual film festival based in Glasgow, Scotland. The festival began in 2005. By 2015, the festival had seen audience figures top 40,000 for two consecutive years. It is now considered one of the top film festivals ...

and others. Her 1999 film ''Paradise Bent: Boys will be Girls in Samoa'' won the Silver Plaque at the

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

.James MacGregor
Sheffield DocsFest Announces Oz Director
netribution.co.uk, 21 March 2006, retrieved 17 January 2014 She continued her career at the South Australian Film Corporation, and also produced digital and documentary strands at the

. In 2001, she developed Crossover, an organisation which works with technologists, coders, artists, performers, filmmakers, writers and more to create new interdisciplinary projects. From 2003, Croall worked for the

Australian International Documentary Conference The Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) is an Australian conference for the promotion of documentary, factual and unscripted screen content, regarded as one of two major national conferences for filmmakers. History First esta ...

, where she became CEO and Festival Director and developed the MeetMarket pitching event. Croall then set up the MeetMarket at Sheffield Docfest in 2006 and it is still a central part of that festival.

Sheffield Doc/Fest

In 2006, Croall was invited to become CEO and festival director at Sheffield Doc/Fest.Michael Rosser
''Heather Croall, Sheffield Doc/Fest''
screendaily.com, 10 June 2013 When she joined the festival, it was a two-day event attracting 500 delegates and 2000 public attendees. Croall widened it to a five-day event with 3000 delegates and 25,000 public attendees.Kevin Ritchie
''Doc/Fest celebrates its second decade''
''realscreen.com'', 12 June 2013 She found new funding which tripled the budget in two years,Adam Dawtrey
Sheffield Doc/Fest stresses quality
''Variety'', 31 October 2008, retrieved 17 January 2014 and changed the date of the festival from November to June. She brought in the MeetMarket pitching forum, which in 2011 generated £5.6 million worth of business for producers.Adam Benzine
Heather Croall, festival director, Sheffield Doc/Fest
realscreen.com, 1 January 2012, retrieved 16 January 2014 She also added year-round training and events alongside the festival. ''Variety'' magazine said Croall lifted Doc/Fest "into the premier league of international doc events".Croall takes Sheffield to a new level
''Variety'', 31 October 2008, retrieved 17 January 2014 In 2012 Croall sat on the US Documentary jury at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, and she was on the 25th anniversary advisory committee for

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

's '' POV'' documentary series. In 2015 she was awarded

's Inspiration Award.

Adelaide Fringe

In February 2015, Croall left Doc/Fest to become CEO and festival director of the Adelaide Fringe, with her contract extended to 2020 after two successful festivals. Her contract was extended again to 2024 and to 2026. Croall has taken Adelaide Fringe ticket sales from 500,000 to 1 million a year. She has spearheaded the philanthropic arm at Adelaide Fringe, setting up the Donor Circle and other donation avenues and fundraising which has led to $1million per year in grants being dispersed to artists. Croall has grown the marketplace outcomes at Adelaide Fringe 10fold in her time at the organisation. In August 2016, under Croall's leadership, the Adelaide Fringe began an official partnership with the

Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featur ...

Filmography

Croall has co-produced a number of films, in which directors edit together archive footage on a particular theme, soundtracked by original music. *In 2020 Croall produced and directed “Yer Old Faither” a documentary about her father who immigrated from

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

to the remote town of

Whyalla Whyalla is a city in South Australia. It was founded as Hummock's Hill, and was known by that name until 1916. It is the fourth most populous city in the Australian state of South Australia after Adelaide, Mount Gambier, and Gawler, and along ...

. The film was supported by the

Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund The Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund was established in 2003 by the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, to boost the local production of films. When the American festival director Peter Sellars was director of the 2002 Adelaide Festival o ...

and

Screen Australia Screen Australia is the Australian Federal Government's key funding body for the Australian screen production industry, created under the ''Screen Australia Act 2008''. From 1 July 2008 Screen Australia took over the functions of its predecess ...

and the South Australian Film Corporation as well as significant crowd funding through Documentary Australia Foundation. “Yer Old Faither” premiered at the

where it won the Audience Award. It also screened at

and is available on the DocPlay channel in Australia. *In 2012 Croall commissioned and co-produced a project at Doc/Fest especially for the festival, '' From the Sea to the Land Beyond''. This is a documentary made up of archive footage from the British coast, directed by Penny Woolcock with an original soundtrack by

British Sea Power Sea Power, previously known as British Sea Power and initially as British Air Powers, are an English alternative rock band. The group's original lineup consisted of Jan Scott Wilkinson, known as Yan; Martin Noble, known as Noble; and Alison Co ...

. In 2013 Croall co-produced '' The Big Melt'', a documentary by Martin Wallace and Jarvis Cocker that similarly fused original music with archive footage. It was made to celebrate 100 years of stainless steel in Sheffield, with a live soundtrack scored by

Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Branson Cocker (born 19 September 1963) is an English musician. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp (band), Pulp, he became a reluctant figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Cocker h ...

. She also followed up From the Sea to the Land Beyond with its Australian equivalent, '' Girt by Sea'', which was made for the Perth International Arts Festival on the theme of the Australian coast. Shane McNeil directed, with music by

The Panics The Panics are an indie rock band originally from Perth, Western Australia, and currently based in Melbourne, Victoria. History 2000–2006: Band formation and LittleBigMan Records The band started out while Jae Laffer (then known by his act ...

. *For 2014 Croall co-produced three films, again fusing archive footage with new, original soundtracks. '' Velorama'' told the story of a century of the bicycle. It was commissioned to mark the arrival of the 2014 Tour de France in Yorkshire, and directed by Daisy Asquith with a soundtrack by

Bill Nelson Clarence William Nelson II (born September 29, 1942) is an American politician, attorney, and former astronaut who served from 2001 to 2019 as a United States Senate, United States senator from Florida and from 2021 to 2025 as the Administrator ...

and

Chumbawamba Chumbawamba () was a British anarcho-punk band who formed in 1982 and disbanded in 2012. They are best known for their 1997 single "Tubthumping", which was nominated for Best British Single at the Brit Awards 1998. Other singles include "Amnes ...

. '' Love Is All'' brought together director Kim Longinotto with

singer/songwriter

Richard Hawley Richard Willis Hawley (born 17 January 1967) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. After his first band Treebound Story (formed while he was still at school) broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Long ...

, formerly of

Pulp Pulp may refer to: * Pulp (fruit), the inner flesh of fruit * Pulp (band), an English rock band Engineering * Pulp (paper), the fibrous material used to make paper * Dissolving pulp, highly purified cellulose used in fibre and film manufacture ...

, to explore the theme of love.''Love Is All at Doc/Fest''
, veritamag.co.uk, 4 June 2014, retrieved 4 August 2014Helen Pidd
''Pulp to Scorsese: down-to-earth Sheffield Doc/Fest reaches for the stars''
''The Guardian'', 8 June 2014, retrieved 4 August 2014 And '' From Scotland with Love'' was commissioned as part of the Cultural Festival accompanying the

2014 Commonwealth Games The 2014 Commonwealth Games (), officially known as the XX Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Glasgow 2014 (; ), were an international multi-sport event celebrated in the tradition of the Commonwealth Games as governed by the Commonwea ...

, directed by Virginia Heath with a soundtrack by

King Creosote Kenny Anderson (born January 1967), known primarily by his stage name King Creosote, is an independent singer-songwriter from Fife, Scotland. To date, Anderson has released over forty albums, with his latest full length, '' I DES'', released in ...

. *In 2015 Croall co-produced two films, both for Storyville. '' Atomic, Living in Dread and Promise'' was directed by Mark Cousins and soundtracked by

Mogwai Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mogwa ...

(who released the music as the album '' Atomic''). '' The Show of Shows: 100 Years of Vaudeville, Circuses and Carnivals'' was directed by Benedikt Erlingsson with music from

Sigur Rós Sigur Rós () is an Icelandic post-rock band that formed in 1994 in Reykjavík. It comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Jónsi, Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, bassist Georg Hólm, and keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson. Known for their ethereal soun ...

Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson (; born 23 April 1958), also known as HÖH, is a musician, an art director, and '' allsherjargoði'' (''chief goði'') of Ásatrúarfélagið ("the Ásatrú Association"). Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson was a pioneer in the use ...

and Kjartan Dagur Holm.

Accolades

In 2024 Heather Croall AM was awarded an Order of Australia for her services to the Arts and Film. She won the Festival Management CEO of the Year 2022 (Australia) as voted by CEO Monthly magazine. In 2023 Heather Croall was named SA Person of the Year at the SALIFE Absolute Best Awards. In 2020 Heather Croall won the Leadership Award at the SA Woman Awards and in 2021, Croall was nominated as Leader of the Year in the South Australian Woman of the Year Awards. In 2015 Croall received Sheffield Doc/Fest's Inspiration Award. In 2021 Croall was awarded the Superhero Award at the DocEdge Festival in New Zealand. In 2014 Croall was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from

. The

named Croall 2013's Ambassador of Women's Films for her work "to boost documentary film and open opportunities for women filmmakers",Jennifer Merin
''Sheffield Doc/Fest 2013 – Award Winners''
, about.com, retrieved 16 June 2013 and in 2011 Croall was named a trailblazer by ''Realscreen''.Realscreen presents: Trailblazers 2011
realscreen.com, 7 February 2012, retrieved 16 January 2014 Croall was appointed a

Member of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an Australian honours and awards system, Australian honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Monarch ...

in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the performing arts, as an administrator, advocate and film maker".

Media appearances

She has appeared on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

's ''

The Review Show ''The Review Show'' is a British discussion programme dedicated to the arts which ran, under several titles, from 1994 to 2014. The programme featured a panel of guests who reviewed developments in the world of the arts and culture. History ''T ...

'' and

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

's ''

The Media Show ''The Media Show'' is a weekly United Kingdom, British current affairs (news format), current affairs radio programme and podcast on BBC Radio 4 which examines the current state of the Mass media, media. First broadcast on 1 October 2008, it is p ...

''.The Media Show
bbc.co.uk, 27 February 2013, retrieved 17 January 2014

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Croall, Heather 1967 births Living people Australian documentary film producers Members of the Order of Australia People from Blackpool English emigrants to Australia Film festival directors Australian women film producers Australian women documentary filmmakers