Ian Barry (1946-) was born in Sydney. Growing up as a child, he was inspired through his Uncle Harold’s backyard cinema which seated fifty, to make movies. He describes his Uncle in retrospect as “the architect of my life”. Armed with an 8mm camera bought by his aunt, Barry started to make many short films. He worked for the ABC as an editor after graduating from the mailroom. His celebrated 16mm short film Waiting … for Lucas (1973) led him to befriend Sandy Harbutt and Barry worked on that director’s cult movie Stone (1974) as editor-on-set. The ensuing years saw Barry try to raise funding for a screenplay named The Sparks Obituary. He made a 1978 short film based on the script to help lure investment. In the meantime, he made The Chain Reaction (1980) which is a deserved cult classic. He was blacklisted due to budgetary issues over that movie but returned to make memorable Aussie tv movies such as Seventh Floor (1994), Blackwater Trail (1995) and mini-series Ring of Scorpio (1991). These led to international films such as Robo Warriors (1996) and further tv movies Inferno (1998) and another possible cult classic Airtight (1999) which was shot in Sydney. Barry continued to work on television until around 2018.