Biography
Philippa Bateman is the founder of Enigma Machine, an independent Sydney-based film and television production company. The slate comprises scripted, documentary, and animated features.
Enigma produced WASH MY SOUL IN THE RIVER’S FLOW, which won Best Feature Documentary at AIDC 2023, and earned Philippa an ADG nomination for Best Direction in a Debut Feature. It was also ranked the top documentary in The Guardian’s Top Ten Australian Films of 2022. Following official selection in all major Australian film festivals and a nationwide theatrical release in 2022, the film was acquired by Stan Australia, ABC 1 and in 2025, by PBS SoCal in the US.
Other feature documentary credits include JUANITA NIELSEN NOW! (producer) and Ian Darling’s ALONE ACROSS AUSTRALIA (Executive Producer). Philippa has also produced and worked with screen-based visual artists: Alex Kershaw (AMERICAN HUNTER – post-production), Zanny Begg (THE BEEHIVE for ACMI and Artbank) and Brad Miller (Starry Night for Vivid).
A recipient of the 2019 Documentary Australia Foundation/Screen NSW She-Doc Fellowship, Philippa was embedded at Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions in New York. Over the past decade, she consulted for Good Pitch Australia and the Shark Island Institute, and for production companies on scripted television and features.
Prior to her relatively recent focus on documentary, Philippa enjoyed a 25-year career in narrative feature film in Australia, the US and UK where she worked at a senior level in development, production and acquisitions. Working in the independent sector, and with both neophytes and highly experienced writers, directors and published prose writers, she has always been committed to distinctive ideas and cinematic storytelling as an art form. As producer, Philippa has had First Look producer deals with two US studios—Universal and United Artists/MGM (during the tenure of UA President Bingham Ray: BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, HOTEL RWANDA and CAPOTE) for whom she also consulted on acquisitions.
At her former company April Films, notable acquisitions include Geraldine Brooks’ March prior to the novel winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature which she adapted for the screen and Toad Rage, an animated feature which was acquired with Universal Studios and later sold to Fox Animation. The first film Philippa produced, and under the April banner was JINDABYNE written by Bea Christian and based on the Raymond Carver story 'So Much Water So Close to Home'. Directed by Ray Lawrence (LANTANA) and starring Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne, the film was officially selected for Director’s Fortnight, Cannes, Toronto International Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival. JINDABYNE sold to Sony Classics and around the world. In Australia, the film was distributed by April Films and Roadshow; it remains one of the highest grossing Australian films at the domestic box office and was nominated for 11 AFI Awards, including Best Film. As CEO of April Films, Philippa won the SPA Independent Producer’s Award.
Philippa began her cinema career in script and story development in Los Angeles with an Oscar-winning screenwriter and in London, having worked as a published feature writer in magazine journalism (Harper's Bazaar, Elle, among others) and an academic researcher in Art History and Film at the University of Sydney, from where she graduated with a degree in Philosophy and English Literature.