Bethany Ryan

Production Designer

Bethany Ryan is an Australian Production Designer working across film, television and commercials.

A graduate of RMIT’s prestigious Design School with Honours in Interior Design, Bethany began work in Architecture. In pursuit of a career in film she continued her studies at AFTRS in Sydney, specialising in Production Design.

In 2022 Beth designed the queer coming of age feature, Of an Age, which reunited her with frequent collaborators, director Goran Stolveski and Causeway Films. Of an Age had its World Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and will be distributed in the US by Focus Features. 2022 also saw Beth designing the Causeway Films teen horror film, Talk to Me, for directors Danny & Michael Philippou. The film had its World Premiere the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, having been selected to screen in the midnight section, where it was been picked up for US distribution by art house favourite A24. The film also screened at prestigious international festivals such as Berlinale and SXSW. In 2020, Bethany production designed You Won’t Be Alone (Causeway Films, 2022), the feature film debut of writer direct Goran Stolevski. The film stars Noomi Rapace and Alice Englert in a tale that follows a young witch who is left to the woods by her isolated mountain village in 19th-century Macedonia. The film had it had its World Premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival where it was met with unwavering acclaim.

Beth’s other feature credits include, Lone Wolf (dir. Jonathan Ogilvie/ Black Frame Production, 2021), an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel, The Secret Agent. The film had its World Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2021 before going on to its International Premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, where it screened as part of the Official Selection. Lone Wolf went onto receive an AACTA Award for Best Indie Feature Film.

In 2018 Beth travelled to Cambodia to design Buoyancy (dir. Rodd Rathjen), with Causeway Films. At its World Premiere at the 2019 Berlinale, Buoyancy was awarded the Panorama Ecumenical Prize and nominated for GWFF Best First Feature and the Berlinale Amnesty Award. The film went on to be selected as Australia’s 2019 submission for best international feature film at the Oscars and won the AACTA Award for Best Independent Feature.

Further feature film credits include The Pretend One (dir. Tony Prescott, 2017) and Pimped (dir. David Barker/ Playground, 2018). Bethany has designed numerous short films, including The Guests (dir. Shane Danielsen), nominated for the Palme d’Or in official competition at Cannes Film Festival 2015; Emerald Pictures’ Spice Sisters (dir. Sheila Jayadev), Sydney Film Festival 2016; and the AWGIE award winning Baby Baby (dir. Billie Pleffer), Melbourne International Film Festival 2014. She also designed Jon Bell’s acclaimed horror short, The Moogai (Causeway Films, 2020), which won the SXSW Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film in the Midnight Selection as well as Best Australian short film at the 2020 Melbourne International Film Festival.

Most recently, Beth designed another Causeway feature, The Moogai (written and directed by Jon Bell), following on from the award winning short. The film is an Aboriginal psychological horror about a family terrorized by a child-stealing spirit.

Bethany’s Website: https://www.bethanyryan.net/

For enquiries regarding Bethany Ryan please contact us via email or on (02) 9319 7199.