Tim Burstall's family immigrated to Australia in 1937, when he was eight. Raised and educated in Melbourne, Burstall became infatuated with filmmaking as a youth and, after leaving school, began to carve out a career in the local industry. In 1959, he and Patrick Ryan (q.v.) established Eltham Films to make their first film, a black-and-white short called The Prize. It went on to win an award at the Venice Film Festival the following year. Eltham Films produced numerous shorts, documentaries on Australian culture and history, and children's television programs, including the much-acclaimed Sebastian the Fox series for the ABC (1962-63). The company also made a number of films that examined some of Australia's great artists (notably Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, John Brack, Albert Tucker, and Clifton Pugh) (qq.v.).
During the 1960s, Burstall worked with a number of local filmmakers, including David Bilcock (q.v.), Giorgio Mangiamele (q.v.), and Allan Harness. He was also associated around this time with composer George Dreyfus (q.v.). Burstall made two films for the Commonwealth Film Unit (q.v.) in 1965: Painting People (an overview of the work of some of the artists he had surveyed in his earlier documentaries) and Nullarbor Hideout (a children's film). With Eltham Films, he also produced an animated feature called The Magic Trumpet. In 1969, he wrote and directed Two Thousand Weeks, the first locally made feature film since Charles Chauvel's (q.v.) Jedda in 1955. Although it failed at the box office and was negatively received by critics, Two Thousand Weeks became an important influence on Bruce Beresford (q.v.) and Philip Adams (q.v.), the team behind The Adventures of Barry McKenzie.
Burstall briefly returned to documentary filmmaking after Two Thousand Weeks, producing the cult surfing film Getting Back to Nothing (1970). The following year, however, he put into production a film adaptation of David Williamson's play The Coming of Stork. Released as Stork in 1971, the film became a moderate commercial success and set in motion the decision by Burstall, David Bilcock, and Robin Copping to found Hexagon Films the following year. The company's first production was the classic ocker film Alvin Purple. Among Burstall's later films are three collaborations with David Williamson: Petersen, Eliza Fraser, and Duet for Four. The final hexagon film was the 1979 feature The Last of the Knucklemen.
During the course of his career, Tim Burstall won a number of awards, including several presented by the Australian Film Institute. In 1996, he was also awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution to the Australian film industry. In addition to his film career, Burstall also worked extensively in television, directing episodes of Special Squad, Return to Eden II, The Man from Snowy River, and Water Rats. He died unexpectedly in 2004 after suffering a stroke while attending a screening of his short films organised by Melbourne's Eltham Council. Burstall is survived by his wife Betty and his sons Dan (a cinematographer) and Tom (a film producer).
