Mad Max creator George Miller rides into Cannes on top of the world

The Oscar winner and head of the Cannes film festival jury is enjoying the lasting appeal of the frantic action films, praised for reconciling audience expectations with artistic standards

Reading Time:2 minutes

Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road. Photo: TNS

Published: 7:01am, 10 May 2016Updated: 7:00am, 10 May 2016

Australian director George Miller is at a high point in a masterful career. His Mad Max: Fury Road won a swag of awards, adding to a long list of acclaimed movies, and this week he will bask in the glory of presiding over the Cannes film festival jury.

Even missing out on the best director gong at this year’s Oscars, won by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for The Revenant , could not take the gloss off the success of the latest of his post-apocalyptic Mad Max action movies, released last year.

Australian film director George Miller will preside over the Jury of the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival from May 11-22. Photo: EPA

“You’d be a fool to be disappointed when we did so well,” the 71-year-old director told The Sydney Morning Herald on returning to the city in March after the movie won six Academy Awards and four British Baftas.

As a writer, director and producer Miller is a pioneer of Australian cinema – with a career that runs from the original 1979 Mad Max starring a young, leather-clad Mel Gibson, to Babe and the feel-good animated classic Happy Feet in 2006.