'I Always Make Sure There Is A Window In The Editing Room'

So says Moulin Rouge editor Jill Bilcock.

- Sudipto Mullick

Suicide Blonde - may I call you that?” I muttered in a low tone over her petite frame and the intended recipient swiveled her snow-white blunt-cut haired head in my direction with an immediate acknowledgement of the Michael Hutchence-led INXS' song reference. Jill Bilcock, the 'blonde' in contention is one of the most revered and famous female film editors who has worked with Baz Lurhmann, Sam Mendes, Fred Schepisi and Richard Lowenstein among others, the last two being instrumental in her career.

While Jill was a final year student at Swinburne, she jumped at the opportunity to do a course in film which had Schepisi as one of the examiners, who having liked her short film on human rights, made her a $30 a week offer to work in his new film factory. Given a free hand to run wild with film-making, she settled on editing with another Swinburne graduate, Lowenstein, as her assistant. As history would have it, Jill's first feature film editor job would be with Lowenstein's Strikebound in 1984. And currently, she is the supervising editor at large on Mystify, a doco that Lowenstein is making about INXS front man Michael Hutchence.

In between she has etched out a fine name for herself having cut films like Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet', Moulin Rouge, 'Road to Perdition. Nominated for an Oscar for Moulin Rouge, it was under Jill's persuasion that PJ Hogan let "You're terrible, Muriel" dialogue on Muriel's Wedding to beget a hit. Incidentally, Jill has recently become the subject of a documentary titled, Dancing the Invisible.