Czech poster for My Brilliant Career

This Czech poster for Gillian Armstrong's feature directorial debut My Brilliant Career (called Moje skvělá kariéra which translates to 'My Great Career') is an interesting example of how an Australian film could be marketed to an international audience. Film posters are a significant component of a movie's release in theatres, giving people an idea of what to expect from the film and why they should see it. In this poster from 1979, a woman's face is reflected in a shattered glass mirror, perhaps referencing how My Brilliant Career, based on the 1901 Miles Franklin novel, also shattered some expectations of women's roles in a period drama. Instead of the headstrong female protagonist meeting her match and finding the love of her life, the opinionated Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) rejects marriage to pursue a writing career in rural Australia. She has similarities to other literary heroines such as Jo March in Little Women (which Armstrong also directed an adaptation of in 1994). Judy Davis played her own piano solos in the film after learning the instrument for her role. 

Anna Senior's design of the white dress worn by Sybylla was inspired and influenced by a Tom Roberts painting in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. 

Miles Franklin wrote a sequel to My Brilliant Career called My Career Goes Bung. The novel was not published until 1946 and the book has never been adapted for the screen.