Michael Jenkins (1946 – 4 March 2024) was an Australian writer, producer and film and television director.

Career

Jenkins was the creator of the

crime drama Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

television series '' Scales of Justice'', '' Blue Murder'' and '' Wildside'', all of which deal with corruption in the New South Wales police force. He also directed the cult film '' The Heartbreak Kid'', its spin-off series ''

Heartbreak High ''Heartbreak High'' is an Australian television programme created by Michael Jenkins and Ben Gannon that ran from 1994 to 1996 on Network Ten and 1997 to 1999 on ABC, for seven series. It was also partially funded from 1996 by BBC2, with som ...

'', and served as a producer for the latter's 2022 reboot of the same name. Jenkins was one of the most highly regarded Australian directors of the 1990s, known for his distinctive, gritty style, particularly for his use of multiple hand-held cameras and semi-improvised dialogue. Jenkins garnered controversy in 2007, when he was announced as the director of ''The Wrong Girl'', a film about the

Sydney gang rapes The Sydney gang rapes were a series of gang rape attacks committed by a group of up to 14 youths led by Bilal Skaf against Australian women and teenage girls (2 with Italian parents, 1 with Greek parents and one Aboriginal Australian girl), as y ...

in 2000, written with

Nicholas Hammond Nicholas Hammond (born 15 May 1950) is an American and Australian actor and writer who is best known for his roles as Friedrich von Trapp in the film '' The Sound of Music'' and as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the 1970s television series ''The Am ...

. The film ceased production after criticism from Premier

Morris Iemma Morris Iemma (; born 21 July 1961) is an Australian former politician who was the 40th Premier of New South Wales, serving from 3 August 2005 to 5 September 2008. From Sydney, Iemma attended the University of Sydney and the University of Techn ...

and Deputy Premier John Watkins. Jenkins was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2020, and died on 4 March 2024, at the age of 77.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
Michael Jenkins
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national c ...

Michael Jenkins
at AustLit (subscription required) 1946 births 2024 deaths Australian directors {{Australia-film-bio-stub