John Dingwall
John Dingwall was an Australian writer of film and television, best known for his screenplay Sunday Too Far Away. Dingwall should not be confused with the Scottish journalist of the same name.
Career
Dingwall was born in Rockhampton, Queensland, where he commenced his career as a journalist with a cadetship at the city's daily newspaper, The Morning Bulletin. He then moved to Sydney, where he worked as a police reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.His experience with the courts and police kickstarted a career in television drama, when he began writing for television production house Crawford Productions, working on police procedural series such as Homicide and Division Four. He won a 1970 Australian Writers' Guild Award for writing the episode “Johnny Reb” of Homicide.
He moved into features with 1975 Australian New Wave film Sunday Too Far Away, which was based on his brother-in-law's experiences as a sheep shearer.
In 1977, Dingwall co-created and co-wrote the award-winning television series Pig in a Poke. In 1983, he penned the Australian Film Institute Award-winning screenplay for the comedy adventure film Buddies. Faced with distribution difficulties, he took the film on the road, touring it around regional Queensland cinemas. He later mortgaged his house to finance the 1988 cult horror film Phobia, which he wrote and directed.