"The much-loved Australian writer, director and artist Sarah Watt — the wife of the actor William McInnes — has died of cancer," report Garry Maddox and Rebecca Richardson in the Sydney Morning Herald. "Watt, 53, was recognized as a rare talent through a series of heartfelt animated shorts before triumphing with the 2005 film Look Both Ways, which starred McInnes as a photographer dealing with cancer. It won her the best film, director and original screenplay awards at the Australian Film Institute Awards as well as the Discovery award at the Toronto International Film Festival. But by the time of the film's release, she was dealing with her own diagnosis of breast cancer, and she chronicled the experience of illness with humor and heart in her 2009 film My Year without Sex, which starred Sacha Horler and Matt Day."
"It was Watt's animated shorts that gained the writer and director attention, while her 1995 work Small Treasures won awards, including best short film at the Venice Film Festival," notes the Australian.
Just a couple of weeks ago in the Age, Liza Power reviewed the memoir Watt and McInnes wrote about her struggle with cancer, Worse Things Happen at Sea: "In her films, she's always taken her experiences and made the rough edges smooth, infused them with grace, whimsy and optimism. This time her writing was different; her diagnosis with secondary bone cancer two years ago lent it a rawness."
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