Sydney Film Festival expresses sincere condolences to the family and friends of Valwyn Wishart, who died on 15 August 2021. Valwyn Wishart was Director of the Sydney Film Festival in 1958 and was instrumental in preserving the history of the Festival in recent years. Together with the Oral History Committee, she helped edit 40 Years of Film: An Oral History of the Sydney Film Festival and did exhaustive research on the original photographs.

When Valwyn took over as director in 1958, she said that “The Festival has a very honourable tradition of the participation of women.”

Vale, Valwyn Wishart.

Filmmaker Joan Long (left) and Valwyn Wishart (right), taken in 1967 and from SFF archives.