Natalie Miller


Natalie Rona Miller is an Australian film distributor, exhibitor and producer. She is known as the founder of film distribution house Sharmill Films, and the Melbourne theatres Longford Cinema and Cinema Nova.

Film industry career

Miller studied at Methodist Ladies' College, Melbourne, and then completed an arts degree at the University of Melbourne. She began her career working in journalism and public relations at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, then entered the film industry working on public relations for the Melbourne Film Festival for 17 years. In the mid-1960s, she was so impressed by Luis Buñuel's surrealist film The Exterminating Angel, which had shown at the festival, that she purchased the Australian distribution rights herself and exhibited it at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne to give the film a wider audience. Following the success of her first foray into film exhibition, Miller founded Sharmill Films in 1967, which specialises in the distribution of arthouse films in Australia.
Miller also founded two cinemas in Melbourne: the Longford Cinema in South Yarra, which closed in 2005 after Village Cinemas opened a multiplex at The Jam Factory; and Cinema Nova, an arthouse cinema in Carlton which began with two screens and has now expanded to 15.

Honours and awards