
Academy Award winning production designer Colin Gibson has been the architect of the end of the world. George Miller’s go-to guy for two decades now, he’s credited for creating the look and feel of Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, as well as such iconic Australian films such as The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Babe: Pig in the City. It’s undeniable that Gibson has it in him to make it epic. Join us for a dynamic conversation with Gibson as he takes us through his craft and the process of collaboration in creating these unforgettable worlds.
Presented by
Talks Supported by
![]() |
![]() |
Community Broadcast Partner
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Colin Gibson

As a failing actor with two children to support and a hefty community service detention left to run, Colin took what he thought would be the easy option and joined the Art Department. Be careful what you wish for… too loud for props, too bad with crayon or calculator for art directing, he was eventually forced into production design when he became too old and grumpy to take orders from other elderly curmudgeons. Unless they were directors…
And it is largely directors we have to blame for his laughable “career”: lovely, otherwise talented people like Ray Lawrence, Gillian Armstrong, John Duigan, Stephan Elliott, Wim Wenders, Zhang Jimou and of course George Miller. All contributed to the delinquency in their own way, either through apathy, benign neglect or the sort of active amusement one might show a monkey on a bicycle.
Riding on the coat-tails of the talented has proven, if not lucrative, at least amusing and has been a hell of a way to kill time before he must face the reality of his wasted life; to the televisual wonderment of Love My Way, 9 Perfect Strangers and Operation Buffalo and feature films including Bliss and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Babe and The Great Wall, Until the End of the World and Fury Road and Furiosa (A Mad Max Saga).
Perhaps not entirely a wasted life, then?
— Colin
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig's first film as writer-director is a delightful, painful comedy about "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), a Sacramento teen on the point of swapping high school for college, and her hard-working mom, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).
In the Mood for Love
Wong Kar-wai's most acclaimed and popular film is a love story about two neighbours (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their respective spouses + a newly released short companion piece from 2001.
Casques bleues
Deployed in the DRC, women peacekeepers from Quebec bring awareness and education to "the rape capital of the world." Join us for a Q&A after the screening with filmmakers Louise Leroux and Richard Blackburn.
Folktales
Pasvik Folk High School in Norway provides a very special gap year education. Located in the far north, it teaches arctic survival skills (bushcraft and hunting) and dog sledding (mushing).
Souleymane's Story
Exhausted by the grueling grind of the Parisian gig economy and hopping between homeless shelters, Guinean immigrant Souleymane races against time to prepare for his asylum interview. An angry, tender film which is as gripping as any thriller.