Simon Target

Simon Target (born January 1962) is a British/Australian film-maker. He is best known for a series of self-filmed television documentaries he made for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which include King's School (on The King's School, Sydney), Flight for Life (about the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia), The Academy (on the Australian Defence Force Academy), and Rough Justice (about the legal profession). Uni, his study of a group of dissolute arts students at Sydney University, featured Charles Firth, Craig Reucassel and Andrew Hansen, who formed the comedy group The Chaser Hansen later satirised Target in CNNNN, where he played the network's British correspondent who was also called Simon Target.

Target wrote and directed the feature film Backsliding, starring Tim Roth, with an original score by Australian composer Nigel Westlake, and the TV series Operatunity Oz - a nationwide talent search to find an ‘undiscovered’ opera singer. Target has also directed live opera for the stage in England and the USA, with artists such as Simon Keenlyside, Simon Russell Beale and conductor Andrew Parrott.

Other work includes TV series with Donna Hay, Curtis Stone, Ben O'Donoghue, Kylie Kwong, Ainsley Harriott and Rick Stein. In 2010 he wrote and directed the natural history series Penguin Island, with Rolf Harris for BBC Television. The series won Target prizes for best script and best direction at science/environmental film festivals in China and Germany, and the Grand Prix in Banska Bystrica, Slovenia.

Target was born in the United Kingdom. Educated at Westminster School, London, where he starred in a 1979 BBC television documentary about the school called ((Public School)) directed by Jonathan Gili, then read Music and English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He attended Britain's National Film and Television School.

Target lives in Sydney, Australia and is married to Polish doctor Beata Zatorska with whom he co-wrote a book about Poland Rose Petal Jam - Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland, published by Tabula Books, winner of the 2012 Gourmand Award. Gerstenberg Verlag published a German language version 'Rosenmarmelade', which also won a Gourmand Award in 2014. Target and Zatorska produced 'Sugared Orange - Recipes and Stories from a Winter in Poland' published by Tabula in October 2013.

Target has made recent film profiles of artist Tim Storrier, theatre director Simon Stone The Talented Mr Stone and iconic Australian actor/director John Bell. His feature-length documentary A Town Called Brzostek won the Ewa Pięta Award for Best Film at the Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival and the 2015 Humanitarian Award, PFFA Chicago. It also won first prize at the Warsaw and Bucharest Jewish Film Festivals, and was selected for the Berlin Jewish Film Festival 2015.

In April 2016 Simon Target was awarded the 'Zasłużony dla Kultury Polskiej' medal by the Polish Ministry of Culture.