John Whitefoord Heyer (September 14, 1916 - June 19, 2001) was an Australian documentary filmmaker, who is often described as the father of Australian documentary film. He was born in Devonport, Tasmania, the son of a doctor, and died in London, England. He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne. In 1942, he married Dorothy Agnes Greenhalgh (1916-1969) who was known, and credited, as Janet Heyer; and in 1999 he married Irmtraud Schorbach.
John Heyer spent the majority of his career producing and/or directing sponsored documentaries, and was active from the 1930s until his death. His most successful film was The Back of Beyond (1954), but many of his films garnered awards at festivals around the world. He was committed to the whole process of filmmaking from the initial research phase to distribution and exhibition. While he was grounded in the British documentary tradition, particularly during his years at the Australian National Film Board working under Ralph Foster and Stanley Hawes, he developed his own style noted for its lyrical quality.
Heyer was an active participant in the documentary film movement in Australia in the 1940s and 1950s: he was among the first producers employed by the Australian National Film Board, was head of the Shell Film Unit in Australia, and was President of the Sydney Film Society and on the committee which organised the first Sydney Film Festival. He moved to England in 1956 where he continued to make films for Shell, and then through his own company. While he died in England, he maintained contact with Australia throughout his life, producing films in both countries.

Early career
Heyer left the government film unit to head the Shell Film Unit (Australia) in 1948. He was asked to produce a documentary that would capture the essence of Australia and in so doing associate Shell with Australia.

Shell Film Unit
In 1967 he retired from Shell and set up the John Heyer Film Company through which he produced a series of documentaries including The Reef for the Australian Conservation Foundation.

John Heyer Film Company
Heyer lived in England for the rest of his life, but maintained a base in Australia, and regularly travelled between the two countries. In his later years, he continued to be in demand at conferences, such as the Australian International Documentary Conference and the Australian History and Film Conference, and other speaking engagements for his expertise and knowledge about documentary film-making in particular.
While, after his initial start in the industry, his career was primarily focused on documentary film, he had a long-standing wish to film Xavier Herbert's Capricornia, one which he was not able to realise before his death in 2001.

Later life
Academics and critics have written extensively on his influences, citing particularly his work with Harry Watt on The Overlanders (1944-1945), his training in the Grierson tradition under Stanley Hawes at the Australian National Film Board (1945 1948), and his interest in the British, Russian and American documentaries of the 1930s and 1940s. All of these combine to create what Moran describes as "a distinctive Heyer signature. On the one hand a populism and a commitment to postwar reconstruction ... yet there is also a marked pictorialism. The images are frequently cut together into dynamic montage sequences, the rhythm of the soundtrack controlling and orchestrating the rhythm of the cutting". In other words, Heyer believed that documentary had to tell the truth about its subject but that it could use any of the tools at its disposal: re-enactment, drama, history, science. This was someting he had demonstrated, to both critical and popular acclaim, in The Back of Beyond in 1954, and it remained his driving philosophy.

Style
Heyer's films garnered over 20 awards at various international film festivals. The following list represents a small sample of these awards and of other recognition he received:

1954: Grand Prix Assoluto at the Venice Biennale for The Back of Beyond
1958: AFI Award: Silver Medallion (Open) for The Forerunner
1958: Kodak Festival Award at the Melbourne Film Festival for The Forerunner
1958: Trophy presented by the University of Padua International Scientific Film Festival for The Forerunner
1970: OBE
1983: Retrospectives of his films at the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals
1997: OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia)
1999: Stanley Hawes Award for services to Australian documentary Awards and recognition
Note that the dates cited below may vary in different sources; note also that the terminology used for role attribution in documentary film is not always clearly articulated so that such terms as 'producer' and 'director' listed here may not necessarily be those used on the work itself.

The Early Years

Native Earth (Producer, Director and Scriptwriter, 1946)
The Overlanders (Second Unit Director and Scriptwriter, 1946)
Born in the Sun (Producer and Director, 1947)
Journey of a Nation (Producer and Director, 1947)
Lamb: The Story of the Fat Lamb Industry in Australia (Producer, 1947)
Men and Mobs (Producer and Director, 1947)
Born in the Sun (Producer and Director, 1948)
The Cane Cutters (Producer, 1948)
Knowledge Unlimited (Producer and Director, 1948)
Turn the Soil (Producer and Director, 1948)
The Valley is Ours (Director and Scriptwriter, 1948)
Kill As We Go (1948) The Australian National Film Board Years

Shellubrication (Producer and Director, 1951)
Saving Petrol: Correct Driving (Producer, 1952)
Rankin's Springs is West (Producer, 1954)
The Back of Beyond (Producer, Director, Scriptwriter, Dialogue/Narration, 1954)
Getting out of Trouble (Producer, 1954)
On Stream (Producer, 1954)
Playing with Water (Director, 1955)
Let's Go (Producer and Director, 1956)
Thrill Drivers (Producer, 1956)
Saving Petrol: Correct Lubrication (Producer, 1956)
Saving Petrol: Correct Maintenance (Producer, 1956)
The Forerunner (Director, 1957)
Ball and Chain (Director, 1957)
City of Geelong (Producer, 1957)
Paving the Way (Producer, 1957)
Shell Paying Bay (Producer, 1958) OR The Paying Bay
Arid Lands (Producer and Director, 1960)
This is it (Producer, c.1960)
Tumut Pond (Producer and Director, 1962) The Later Years