About Our Guests

Desiree Akhavan

Desiree Akhavan is an American writer/director/actor who created and starred in the popular web series The Slope. She is best known for her debut feature Appropriate Behavior, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to huge critical acclaim. Recently, she featured in the fourth season of Lena Dunham’s Girls as Hannah’s classmate Chandra, appeared in the UK comedy series Flowers, and starred in the 2016 TV movie The Circuit. Her next film as director is The Miseducation of Cameron Post, featuring Chloë Grace Moretz, John Gallagher Jr and Jennifer Ehle.

Lexi Alexander Lexi Alexander is a German-born filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles. At age 19, she became the world champion in both point fighting and karate. She retired from professional fighting and moved to the US, where she played Kitana in Mortal Kombat: Live Tour. She worked as a stuntwoman before making her first short film Johnny Flynton, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003. She directed and co-wrote the 2005 film Green Street Hooligans starring Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam, and directed the comic book adaptation Punisher: War Zone, which has earned a massive cult following. She has also directed episodes of cult hit shows including Arrow, Supergirl, Limitless, American Gothic and Taken.

Michael AltmanMichael Altman is a technician who has worked on films such as Robert Altman’s Kansas City, Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, Frank Darabont’s The Majestic and many others. At age 14, he wrote the lyrics to Suicide Is Painless, which was used in his father Robert Altman’s film MASH, and the subsequent TV show adaptation. He directed the 2007 shot comedy Stuffed Animals, and co-directed the 2012 documentary American Songwriter about Nashville songwriter Danny Darst.

Ian BarrIan Barr is a Canadian-born cinephile currently residing in Sydney. He writes for The Brag and Oyster Magazine, and has also written for Street Press Australia’s The Music. He is a regular contributor to the SBS Movies blog, and reviews for the film website 4:3. He is also the co-programmer for the Australian Windows on Europe Film Festival.

Myke BartlettMyke Bartlett is a Perth-born journalist and author currently residing in Melbourne. He has been published in The Age, Time Out, Dumbo Feather, Overland, Triple J Magazine, Metro, Cream Magazine and The Big Issue. He has a regular weekly column on arts and culture in The Weekly Review. He is also a published author, writing the young adult novel Fire In The Sea, published in 2012.

Stephanie BendixsenStephanie “Hex” Bendixsen is the co-host of Channel Seven’s gaming show screenPLAY. She came to prominence as co-host of the popular gaming show Good Game, which aired on the ABC from 2006-2016, as well as spin-offs Good Game: Spawn Point and Good Game: Pocket Edition, all of which she hosted under the name “Hex”. Stephanie also wrote a regular gaming column for the magazine Dolly. She created and presented the 2016 show How To Be a Fan, and co-wrote two children’s books with her Good Game co-host Steven “Bajo” O’Donnell, Dig World and Dragon Land.

Jon BennettJon Bennett is a storyteller and comedian best known for the book, exhibition and internet phenomenon Pretending Things Are a Cock. He performed his one-man-show My Dad’s Deaths at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, and numerous venues throughout Europe and North America. His 2013 show Fire in the Meth Lab received rave reviews at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Perth Fringe and Montreal Fringe Festival. In 2013, he won The Moth Story Slam in New York City, and in 2014 begun touring his show Story Whore, which earned him his 4th nomination in the Just For Laughs Awards in Montreal.

Kristy BestKristy Best is an actor, filmmaker and television presenter. She hosted the ABC2 feature documentary series Sunday Best for several seasons from 2011. She has appeared in TV programs such as Life Support, Pizza, Home and Away, Neighbours and Legally Brown. She directed the award-winning 2010 short Something Fishy and the upcoming comedy Amateur Hour. In 2016, she became a host with Nickelodeon Australia, and in 2017 appeared in Michelle Lee’s play Rice at the Queensland Theatre Company.

Michael Ian Black is an actor, comedian, writer and director. He has appeared in films such as Wet Hot American Summer (2001), The Baxter (2005), Take Me Home Tonight (2011), This Is 40 (2012), and Hell Baby (2013). On TV, he played Phil Stubbs in the 2000 comedy series Ed, and has also been seen in Reno 911!, Reaper, Robot Chicken, Burning Love, Maron, Us & Them, Inside Amy Schumer, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Another Period, and the Wet Hot American Summer follow-up series First Day of Camp and Ten Years Later. He co-created and co-wrote the series Stella, Michael & Michael Have Issues, You’re Whole, all of which he also performed in. He co-wrote the 2007 film Run, Fatboy, Run with Simon Pegg, and wrote and directed 2006’s The Pleasure of Your Company (also known as Wedding Daze), starring Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher. He is also the author of numerous books, including A Child’s First Book of Trump, Navel Gazing and You’re Not Doing It Right, and has released several stand-up specials including Very Famous, I Am a Wonderful Man, and Noted Expert.

Luke BuckmasterLuke Buckmaster is a writer and social media specialist, best known for his work on Crikey.com’s popular film blog Cinetology and film column on The Daily Review. He was the social media coordinator for Crikey and Spook Magazine, and worked in the social media team at the ABC. He was the treasurer of the Australian Film Critics Association, and one of the founding hosts of film podcast The Parallax Podcast. He writes a regular column on Australian film for The Guardian and in 2017 published his first book Miller and Max: George Miller and the Making of a Film Legend.

David Caesar is an filmmaker whose first film was the 1992 comedy Greenkeeping. He is perhaps best known for his collaboration with Ben Mendelsohn in the Australiana comedies Idiot Box (1996), Mullet (2001), and Prime Mover (2009). In 2002, he directed Bryan Brown, Toni Collette, John Goodman, Sam Neill, and Sam Worthington in the period crime comedy Dirty Deeds, and in 2016 made the TV-to-film adaptation Nowhere Boys: Book of Shadows. He is prolific in television, directing episodes of RFDS, Wildside, Hallifax f.p., Water Rats, Stingers, Fireflies, RAN: Remote Area Nurse, K9, Rescue Special Ops, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Tricky Business, Underbelly, Hyde & Seek, Love Child, and Dead Lucky. To a generation, he’ll always be known as the judge from the late 1990s filmmaking reality show Race Around the World.

Sarah CaldwellSarah Caldwell is the Registrar at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). She has a background in Cinema Studies and Fine Arts and has worked in exhibition production for a variety of Collections and Arts Institutions with a focus on film, media and performing arts. Sarah has been Registrar for the Tim Burton exhibition, Dreams Come True exhibition and most recently the DreamWorks Animationexhibition at ACMI. She also worked as Project Manager on the exhibitions War Horse & the Breath of Life and The Extraordinary Shapes of Geoffrey Rush at Arts Centre Melbourne. Sarah is a freelance arts and film education writer, currently working on a book about Vivien Leigh, and dabbles in documentary filmmaking as a researcher.

Thomas CaldwellThomas Caldwell is a film critic, author and festival programmer. He is the writer of the Cinema Autopsy blog, and co-host of Plato’s Cave. He has reviewed films on Triple R’s Breakfasters and Film Buff’s Forecast, as well as JOY FM’s The Casting Couch and WRCN’s Dave & Glenn in the Morning out of New York. He is the author of the secondary school textbook Film Analysis Handbook, and has been published in The Age, The Big Issue, Overland, Senses of Cinema, Metro and Screen Education. He is currently the Shorts and Next Gen Programmer with the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Mel CampbellMel Campbell is a journalist, editor and critic who specialises in pop culture, fashion and trends. She earned her Master of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne with a thesis entitled Bogan: Exploring Images of Australian Cultural Marginalisation. She has written for The Age, The Sunday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sunday Magazine, The Thousands, and many others. In 2013, her book Out of Shape, exploring and debunking the myths about fashion and fitness, was released via Affirm Press. With Anthony Morris, she co-wrote the movie-themed romantic comedy novel The Hot Guy, released via Echo Publishing.

C Robert CargillC. Robert Cargill is a screenwriter, author and film critic. He has written for film.com, hollywood.com, spill.com and on Ain’t It Cool News for years under the pseudonym “Massawyrm”, and the co-host of cinema podcast Junkfood Cinema. He is the co-screenwriter of the horror films Sinister, Sinister II and Marvel’s superhero film Doctor Strange, as well as the upcoming films The Outer Limits and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He is the author of the fantasy novels Dreams and Shadows and its sequel Queen of the Dark Things. His third novel, the science fiction dystopia Sea of Rust, was released in 2017.

Corrie Chen is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened around the world. A graduate of the VCA School of Film and Television, made numerous short films including the award-winning Reg Makes Contact, Wonder Boy, and Happy Country. She shadowed directors on Nowhere Boys, Peter Allen and The Leftovers, and has gone on to direct episodes of television including Network Ten’s Sisters, the ABC’s Mustangs FC, and the SBS On Demand original series Homecoming Queens. She is currently at work on her first feature, Empty Empire.

Tom CliftTom Clift is a freelance film, arts and culture journalist from Melbourne, Australia. He is the co-founder and festivals editor of Movie Mezzanine, reviews films on air for ABC Overnights, and has written for outlets including Concrete Playground, FilmInk Magazine, Film School Rejects and RogerEbert.com. In 2016 he became the after hours editor of the popular news and pop culture website Junkee.

Melanie CoombsMelanie Coombs is a Melbourne-based producer responsible for Growing Old Disgracefully, Break & Enter, Flying Over Mother, Trapped and Long Shadows: Stories From a Jewish Home. Her 2003 short Harvie Krumpet (written and directed by Adam Elliot) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. This was followed by 2009’s feature Mary and Max, featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette and Eric Bana. She produced the science fiction mockumentary The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, which opened the 2016 Melbourne International Film Festival.

Perri CummingsPerri Cummings is a writer and actor who has both written for and appeared in the popular soap Neighbours. She has performed in the theatre productions Hell Hath No Fury and 4.48 Psychosis, and directed a production of As You Like It for Spark Theatre Company, which she co-founded. Her TV credits include The Bazura Project, Laid, Conspiracy 365, City Homicide, Blue Heelers and B!tch. She is star of film noir feature film Trench, which she co-wrote with its director and Hi4H co-founder Paul Anthony Nelson.

terence-davies

Terence Davies is an English filmmaker who first gained renown for his trilogy of autobiographical shorts Children (1970), Madonna and Child (1980) and Death and Transfiguration (1983). His first feature film was Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), which Sight and Sound critics voted one of the greatest films of the past 25 years. He went on to make The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995), and the award-winning Edith Wharton adaptation The House of Mirth (2000), starring Gillian Anderson and Dan Aykroyd. After his documentary memoir Of Time and City (2008) came the renowned adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play The Deep Blue Sea, featuring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale. He has since written and directed the Lewis Grassic Gibbon adaptation Sunset Song (2015) and the Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet Passion (2016).

Guy DavisGuy Davis is a journalist who writes for numerous publications around Australia. He has written for the Geelong Advertiser since 1995, and is an entertainment writer with the Australian Associated Press. He has contributed to The Sunday Age and The Big Issue, and pens the regular pop culture column “Trailer Trash” for The Music. He is also an actor, performing in an episode of The Heartbreak High, in Craig Monahan’s 1998 film The Interview with Hugo Weaving and Tony Martin, and in Paul Anthony Nelson’s film noir Trench.

Scott Derrickson is a writer, producer and director. He co-wrote the screenplays for horror sequels Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000) and Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), the latter of which he also directed. After collaborating with Wim Wenders on the screenplay for Land of Plenty (2004), he broke through with the dramatic horror The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005). From there, he was tapped to direct the science fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). He directed the horror film Sinister (2012), collaborating with C Robert Cargill on the script for both that film and its sequel. After making the horror mystery Deliver Us From Evil (2014), he co-wrote and directed Marvel’s Doctor Strange (2016), the film that introduced Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, again collaborating with C Robert Cargill.

Glenn DunksGlenn Dunks is a film critic who divides his time between Melbourne and New York City. He launched a film blog Stale Popcorn in 2007, and now keeps his works collected on GlennDunks.com. He has written for Tresspass Magazine, Junkee, Metro Magazine, The Big Issue, The Film Experience, Forte Magazine, SBS Film and Encore Magazine, and served as the film editor for Onya Magazine. He has served as a FIPRESCI juror and festival programmer for the San Fransisco Film Festival, and worked as deputy content editor for the Sydney Film Festival. In 2014, he won the Australian Film Critics Association’s Ivan Hutchinson Award for Writing on Australian Cinema.

Tim EganTim Egan is a Melbourne-based filmmaker who has worked on numerous short films, TV commercials, TV programs and music videos. He has worked as cinematographer on Snowgum Film’s Troll Bridge and Incognita Enterprises’ documentary A Life Unexpected. As a VCA student, he wrote and directed the short films Terminal and Hollow. Tim directed ABC2’s six-part comedy series The Bazura Project’s Guide To Sinema, and the short film Curve, which had its international premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Best Narrative Short jury prize, and also screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival, London’s Horror Channel FrightFest, South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Japan’s Short Shorts Film Festival, Austin’s Fantastic Fest, and the Sitges International Film Festival.

Adam Elliot is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. He came to prominence with a trilogy of short films Uncle (1996), Cousin (1999) and Brother (2000), all of which won Australian Film Institute awards. He followed them up with the 2003 claymation Harvie Krumpet, narrated by Geoffrey Rush, which famously beat out heavy hitters Pixar, Disney, Blue Sky to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Following his win, he resisted the lure of Hollywood and made his first feature in Australia, the stop motion comedy-drama Mary and Max (2009), featuring the voices of Toni Colette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humprhies, and Eric Bana. His most recent film is the short Ernie Biscuit (2015), narrated by John Flaus, which won the AACTA award for Best Short Animation.

Marc FennellMarc Fennell is a film critic and television presenter who reviewed films for over a decade on Triple J as “That Movie Guy”. He has hosted Movie Mayhem, Kung Fu Season and Tropfest 2013 on SBS, and has been the host of SBS2’s news program The Feed since 2013. He was a presenter and producer of ABC1’s Hungry Beast, and has appeared on The Circle, The Project and Showtime’s The Movie Club. He created and presents ABC Radio National’s technology program Download This Show, as well as film podcast The Spoiler Guys. He is the author of The Movie Book, released in 2011, and 2015’s Planet According to the Movies.

Abe Forsythe is an actor, writer and director. He’s appeared in films such as The Night We Called It a Day, The Extra, and Little Deaths. On television, he’s featured in Always Greener, Water Rats, The Miraculous Mellops, Tripping Over, Howzat!, and something called The Bazura Project. As a filmmaker, he’s made numerous short films, including the cult hit Computer Boy (2000) and the award-winning Being Carl Williams (2009), and directed episodes of Laid, Mr & Mrs Murder, and The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide To Knife Fighting. His feature films as writer/director include the Ned Kelly spoof Ned (2003), and the black comedy Down Under (2016). He is currently in post-production on his third feature, Little Monsters, which stars Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad.

Garth FranklinGarth Franklin is the Sydney-born writer, editor and founder of the long-running, Webby-award nominated film industry news site Dark Horizons. He has regularly penned columns for Empire Magazine Australia, Cinescape Magazine and AOL, served stints as a film critic on both Foxtel’s Channel V and ABC Radio 702, and contributed articles to numerous outlets including IGN, USA Today and the U.S. Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.

Rhys Graham is an Australian artist and filmmaker who has worked across drama, documentary, publishing, and photography. Best known for his work as a filmmaker, Rhys has directed and co-directed shorts, features, documentaries and anthologies, with credits that include Words From the City (2007), Murundak: Songs of Freedom (2011), Galore (2013), and the Tim Winton adaptation The Turning (2013). His work has earned nominations from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts, the Australian Directors Guild, the Australian Film Institute, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, and more.

Richard Gray filmmakerRichard Gray is an Australian filmmaker currently based in the US. His first feature, Summer Coda starring Rachael Taylor and Alex Dimitriades, was released in 2010. He has since directed 2012’s horror Mine Games, 2013’s football drama Blinder, 2014’s The Lookalike with Justin Long, Jerry O’Connell, John Corbett and Gillian Jacobs, 2015’s Sugar Mountain starring Jason Momoa and Cary Elwes, and 2017’s drama Broken Ghost.

Richard Gray film criticRichard Gray is a film critic who launched sites such as DVD Bits and The Reel Bits. He has written for AUSTAR Magazine, Blockbuster Ineraction, SBS Film’s Social Review, ArtsHub, Tresspass Magazine, METRO MAGAZINE, and many others. He appears regularly on the Behind the Panels podcast, as well as ABC Radio Overnights. In 2017, he released his first book Moving Target: The History and Evolution of Green Arrow, published by Sequart Organization.

Giles HardieGiles Hardie is a Sydney-based entertainment reporter, commentator film critic and entertainment journalist, who worked for years as the Entertainment Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald. He appeared regularly on the Nine Network’s Mornings, and talks arts and entertainment on ABC News 24, ABC radio and the Culture Wars podcast. He has written for The New Daily, ABC Arts Online and Foxtel Magazine, and co-hosted of film podcast The Spoiler Guys. He can be read in Time Out Sydney and ABC Online.

Luca Guadagnino is one of Italy’s most acclaimed filmmakers. He made his debut with crime thriller The Protagonists (1999) and followed up with the erotic drama Melissa P (2006). His third film was the critically-lauded romantic drama I Am Love (2009), the first part of his thematic “desire trilogy”. The second part was A Bigger Splash (2015), featuring Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson, Matthias Schoenaerts, and long-time collaborator Tilda Swinton. His latest film is his most successful to date, both financially and critically: Call Me By Your Name (2017) centres on a Summer romance between 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer), topping numerous best-of-the-year lists and enjoying multiple award nominations. His upcoming films include a remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria, a new version of Swan Lake, and an adaptation of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites.

Kate Hardie

Kate Hardie is an actor and filmmaker, best known for appearing with Kevin Kline and Denzel Washington in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom, with Al Pacino and Donald Sutherland in Hugh Hudson’s Revolution, with Aiden Gillan and Robert Carlyle in Antonia Bird’s Safe, with Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine in Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, with Richard E Grant and Judi Dench in Tim Sullivan’s Jack and Sarah and with Clive Owen in Mike Hodges’ Croupier. She is also an accomplished filmmaker, directing the short film Shoot Me!, the Playhouse Presents episode Mr Understood, and the Coming Up episode Lickle Bill Um.

Richard HaridyRichard Haridy is the creator and writer of Rich on Film, a website devoted to cinematic review and criticism. He has written for Quickflix, and reviewed film for ABC Radio. He is the co-host of film podcast The Parallax Podcast, and is on the board of the FIPRESCI-associated Australian Film Critics Association, where he served as Chair from 2013 to 2015. He currently writes for the website New Atlas.

Rebecca Harkins-CrossRebecca Harkins-Cross is a writer and critic and regular contributor to The Lifted Brow. She was the film editor at The Big Issue and the theatre critic at The Age, and her work has also appeared in The Saturday Paper, The Australian, Meanjin, Crikey, Australian Book Review, Kill Your Darlings, Island, Metro, Treadlie, Senses of Cinema, FilmInk, Screen Education and Screen Machine. Rebecca was named one of the Melbourne Writers Festival’s 30 Writers Under 30 in 2015. She was a finalist for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize and undertook a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship in 2014. Her work has twice been awarded by the Australian Film Critics Association.

Mark HartleyMark Hartley is the filmmaker behind the hit documentaries Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, Machete Maidens Unleashed! and Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. He also directed the 2013 remake of the Australian horror classic Patrick, starring Sharni Vinson, Rachel Griffiths and Charles Dance, and appeared frequently on Triple R’s Film Buff’s Forecast.

Tina Hassannia is a critic and author who has written on film, television and culture for The Guardian, Village Voice, VICE, The Globe and Mail, National Post, Roger Ebert, CBC and others. Born in Tehran during the tumultuous Iran-Iraq war, she grew up in Toronto, receiving a B.A. (Hon) in Communication and Psychology from the University of Ottowa, where she served as Arts & Culture editor for the university newspaper Fulcrum, and also earned a B.A. (Hon) in Film Studies from Carleton University. She is the executive editor of Movie Mezzanine, and is a member of the Toronto Film Critics Association. She is the author of Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema, available from The Critical Press.

Philippa Hawker

Philippa Hawker is one of Australia’s most influential and widely-read critics. She is best-known as film critic for The Age, a position she held from 1997 to 2016. She was the editor of the film journal Cinema Papers and the literary editor at the Sunday Herald, and has lectured on creative writing at the Victorian College of the Arts. She is currently writing a book about the screen life of actor Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Britt Hayes is a writer, editor, author and film critic based in Austin, Texas. She is the associate editor of ScreenCrush, the popular film and entertainment website, and is a regular contributor to Birth. Movies. Death. She has talked film on the /Filmcast and the ScreenCrush Long Takes podcast, as well as on US radio. She is the author of I Should Just Not, a book about the online dating experience from the perspective of a woman who “just wants to hang out with someone, eat pizza and watch The Wire“.

Alexandra Heller-NicholasAlexandra Heller-Nicholas is a film critic and writer with a passion for horror, cult and exploitation film. She is a film critic on Triple R’s Plato’s Cave, and is the author of the books Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (2011), Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality (2014) and is releasing a book on Dario Argento’s Suspiria in late 2015. Her work appears in publications including Overland, Bright Lights Film Journal, Metro, Screen Education and Fangoria, and she is part of the editorial team at Senses of Cinema. Alex is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology.

Zak HepburnZak Hepburn is a popular Melbourne critic and programmer. He is the resident film reviewer for ABC 24 News Breakfast, and regularly talks film on ABC radio. His work has appeared in The Age, Beat Magazine, Twitch.com, and numerous other publications, and he has served on the board of the Australian Film Critics Association since 2013, taking over the Chair in 2015. He is one of the hosts of the film-themed The Parallax Podcast, and curated Cinema Nova’s Cultastrophe. He has also programmed for The Shadow Electric Outdoor Cinema, MonsterFest and Palace Cinemas. In 2015, he became the General Manager of the Melbourne’s iconic Astor Theatre.

Jon HewittJon Hewitt is an Australian filmmaker known for Bloodlust, Red Ball, Darklovestory, Acolytes and X: Night of Vengeance. After years working in exhibition and distribution, he moved to directing full-time. In 2014, he wrote and directed the remake of the Ozploitation classic Turkey Shoot, starring Dominic Purcell and Viva Bianca, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

Tegan HigginbothamTegan Higginbotham is an award-winning comedian and actor who has performed her one-woman shows Touched By Fev, Million Dollar Tegan and Game Changer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. She has appeared in the TV series Whatever Happened To That Guy?, City Homicide, The Bazura Project, Twentysomething, Upper Middle Bogan, Fancy Boy, Whovians, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Have You Been Paying Attention, Spicks and Specks, and Nowhere Boys, and in the feature films The Heckler, Oddball and Holding the Man. She performed and wrote the ABC2 sketch comedy series This Is Littleton and the short film Dinner For Three. She writes regularly on sport for The Age, and hosts the ABC1 sports comedy show Sideliners.

Ming-Zhu Hii is an actor and filmmaker who has made the shorts Close Encounters of a Single Subject and Intrusion, as well as art installation Dead Drop, and multimedia/performance hybrids Until Then Then, This Is Beautiful, and the acclaimed Attract/Repel. She has also appeared in a variety of popular television shows, including Offspring, Sisters, Party Tricks, Newton’s Law, The Ex-PM, Get Krack!n, and many others. On film, she has appeared in the Australian comedy That’s Not Me, the fantasy live-action/animation Peter Rabbit, and the forthcoming sci-fi action thriller Upgrade.

Nicole Holofcener is filmmaker best known for writing and directing the feature films Walking and Talking, Lovely & Amazing, Friends With Money, Please Give, Enough Said, and The Land of Steady Habits. On television, she’s directed episodes of Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, Parks and Recreation, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange is the New Black, One Mississippi, and many more. Her work on the screenplay for 2018’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? earned Nicole her first Oscar nomination.

Blake HowardBlake Howard is a writer, a podcaster, the editor-in-chief & co-founder of Australian film blog Graffiti With Punctuation, but above all he’s a son of Batman. Beginning as a padawan co-host of That Movie Show 2UE and now a member of the prestigious Online Film Critic Society, swaying the Tomato Meter with Rotten Tomatoes-approved reviews, Blake loves nothing more than to watch and share the effects of movies. He co-hosted the film podcast Pod Save Our Screen with Maria Lewis, and created One Heat Minute, the podcast that looks at Michael Bay’s Heat minute-by-minute.

Cerise HowardCerise Howard is a film critic and scholar who has written for Senses of Cinema for many years, and blogs at A Little Lie Down. She currently talks cinema on RRR’s SmartArts program, and on the Plato’s Cave podcast. She is founder and artistic director of the Czech and Slovak Film Festival, which launched in Melbourne in 2013, expanding to Sydney and Canberra in the following years.

Sophie HydeSophie Hyde is an Adelaide-based filmmaker, and director/producer with the Closer Productions collective. She is the producer of the award-winning Shut Up Little Man!, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, and of the 2015 documentary Sam Klemke’s Time Machine. She also directed the 2011 documentary feature Life In Movement, the TV series Fucking Adelaide, and the acclaimed 2014 drama 52 Tuesdays, which picked up awards at Sundance, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and many others.

Hayley Inch

Hayley Inch is a writer and film programmer from Melbourne. She has worked for a number of film festivals in a variety of capacities, including the Melbourne International Film Festival. She is the Shorts Manager at the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, and now works in publicity at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova. She was Broadsheet‘s resident film writer between 2012-2014, and runs her own film criticism site at Herzog’s Chicken. She can be heard regularly on ABC Perth Radio as the Saturday Breakfast film reviewer.

Tara Judah

Tara Judah is a writer and critic who has reviewed for ABC radio, In Film Australia, The Big Issue, and many other publications. She was the programming and content assistant at Melbourne’s famed repertoire cinema The Astor Theatre, and has appeared on Triple R’s Film Buff’s Forecast and Breakfasters. She was one of the original hosts of the film podcast Plato’s Cave.

Briony Kidd is a Hobart-based filmmaker who wrote and directed the 2011 short The Room at the Top of the Stairs, which screened at festivals around the world. She’s currently in development on a feature film inspired by the “psycho-biddy” films of the 1960s, which is supported by Screen Australia and Screen Tasmania. Briony has also reviewed films for the Jakarta Post, and written articles about cinema and social issues for The Guardian, The Mercury, and SBS Movies, and has recently been appointed to the board of the newly-formed national Women in Film an Television Australia. She is also the co-founder of Stranger With My Face, a popular festival showcasing and celebrating women genre directors, named by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the world’s 15 Bloody Best Genre Fests.

Maria LewisMaria Lewis is the author of the Young Adult werewolf book Who’s Afraid, its sequel Who’s Afraid Too, and merman fantasy It Came From the Deep. She was a journalist with The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail, with her work featuring in the New York Post, Empire Magazine, The Huffington Post, and many others. She worked on SBS2’s news program The Feed, and has appeared on SBS, ABC, Nine Network and many others, commenting and reporting on the world of film, television and entertainment. She co-presened the movie podcast Pod Save Our Screen, and is the host of the Eff Yeah Film and Feminism Podcast, which looks at feminism in the pop culture sphere.

Jess Lomas

Jess Lomas is an author, editor and film reviewer. She covered new and classic films for Quickflix, and has written about pop culture, health, diet and lifestyle for various publications. She is the author of far too many unauthorised One Direction bookazines and much prefers her titles Diabetes Recipes and Low Sugar, which allow her to develop recipes and work on her food photography skills.

Alice LoweAlice Lowe is an actor and writer who made her name on stage, appearing with David Mitchell and Robert Webb in City Haunts, Snowbound and Progress In Flying Machines, which she co-devised, and with Matt Holness and Richard Ayoade in Garth Marenghi’s Fright Night and Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead, the latter of which won a Perrier Award at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe. On television she has appeared in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Mighty Boosh, Snuffbox, The IT Crowd, Little Britain, Sherlock and many others, as well as the films Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Paddington and Locke. She co-wrote and starred in the film Sightseers, directed by Ben Wheatley. She is the writer, director and star of the revenge film Prevenge.

Cassandra Magrath is an actor and producer, best known for starring in the smash hit horror Wolf Creek. She was a regular on popular TV shows Ocean Girl and SeaChange, and appeared on the likes of Janus, Blue Heelers, and Neighbours. She’s also been spotted in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Utopia, Wentworth, Jack Irish, Footballer Wants a Wife, Winners and Losers, House Husbands, City Homicide, Shock Jock, The Pacific, and many more. On the big screen, she’s had roles in Hotel de Love, Summer Coda, Big Mamma’s Boy and more. She’s also produced the horror Liz Drives and the romantic comedy 36 Questions.

alicia-malone

Alicia Malone is a film reporter, TV host and writer who got her start presenting for the Movie Network channels, creating and hosting movie shows such as Movie Juice and Premiere. She hosted red carpet events for the AFI Awards and Tropfest, and was seen on Channel 7’s The Morning Show, heard on Triple M, and read in FilmInk magazine. In 2010 she moved to Hollywood, where she worked as a freelance film journalist and critic for the likes of E!, MTV, CNBC, Hollywood Today Live, Access Hollywood, AMC, NBC, IGN, and countless more. She has covered Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and Comic-Con, delivered a TED talk on girls in film, and currently works with Fandago, Profiles with Malone and Mantz, Screen Junkies, and many more. Her first book Backwards and in Heels: The Past, Present and Future of Women Working in Film was released in 2017.

Shannon MarinkoShannon Marinko is the co-creator and co-host of The Bazura Project, which aired on community television from 2006 to 2008, and on ABC2 in 2011 as The Bazura Project’s Guide To Sinema. He created and hosted the pilot Rant for Network Ten, and has written for the ABC1 sports comedy show The Bounce and Foxtel’s sketch comedy series Open Slather.

Neil Marshall is a filmmaker who became an instant cult figure with his debut feature, the werewolf-themed Dog Soldiers (2002). He followed it up with the spelunking horror The Descent (2005). He has also directed the postapocalyptic zombie film Doomsday (2008) and the historical action Centurion (2010) with Michael Fassbender. On television, he has directed episodes of Game of Thrones, Westworld, Hannibal, Constantine, Black Sails, Timeless and Lost In Space, as well as a segment of the Tales of Halloween anthology. His next film will be the Hellboy reboot, starring David Harbour and Milla Jovovich.

Sue MaslinSue Maslin is one of Australia’s most successful producers. She has produced such films as Road To Nhill, The Edge of the Possible, the drama Japanese Story with Toni Collette, Ann Turner’s thriller Irresistible with Susan Sarandon, Sam Neill and Emily Blunt, the AFI-winning documentary Hunt Angels, Celebrity: Dominick Dunne, and The Dressmaker, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and starring Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Judy Davis, Sarah Snook and Hugo Weaving. She is the executive producer of the TV series Other People’s Problems.

Greg McLean is the writer/director behind the influential smash hit horror Wolf Creek. He has also directed the crocodile thriller Rogue, the sequel Wolf Creek 2, the suspenseful The Darkness, the horror-comedy The Belko Experiment, and the survivalist biopic Jungle, based on the life of Yossi Ghinsberg. He has also spun Wolf Creek off into a TV series, and has served as producer on Patrick Hughes’s Red Hill, Justin Dix’s Crawlspace, Abe Forsythe’s Downunder, and Matthew Holmes’s The Legend of Ben Hall.

Kate McCurdyKate McCurdy is a film publicist who worked as Marketing Manager for Sharmill Films from 2010 to 2015. After receiving a Bachelor of Visual Culture with Honours from Monash University, she became Editor at DGi Media, producing publications such as DG magazine, Art & Design Education Resource Guide, Oz Graphix and others. In her time at Sharmill Films, she worked on films such as Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk With Me, Alain Resnais’s You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!, Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre, Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film, Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen, the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winning Force Majeure, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, and the Palme D’or winning Winter Sleep.

Pollyanna McIntoshPollyanna McIntosh is a Scottish-born actor who has appeared in John Landis’s Burke and Hare, Lucky McKee’s The Woman, the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, as well as Sex and Death 101, Land of the Lost, White Settlers, Let Us Prey, M.I. High, Hap and Leonard, The Last Tycoon, and The Walking Dead. She has also worked extensively in theatre, directing the play The Woolgatherer to great acclaim in 2004, and is currently working on her first film as writer/director.

Drew McWeenyDrew McWeeny is one of the web’s most popular critics. He wrote for years as “Moriarty” on Ain’t It Cool News, before joining HitFix, where he wrote the regular Motion/Captured column, featuring film reviews, interviews and more. He appeared in the documentaries Rewind This! and Jodorowsky’s Dune, and is also a screenwriter, having co-written the John Carpenter-directed Cigarette Burns and Prolife in the Masters of Horror anthology series. He currently hosts the podcast ’80s All Over with Scott Weinberg, and writes the blog Pulp & Popcorn. He currently writes reviews for The Tracking Board, and has released ebooks Film Nerd 2.0, in which he chronicles the process of introducing his young sons to cinema’s greatest works.

Angela MeyerAngela Meyer is an author and literary critic who has written for The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Big Issue and Crikey. Her blog Literary Minded has been running since 2007. She is the author of the flash fiction book Captives, and the editor of horror anthology The Great Unknown. She is currently commissioning editor with Bonnier Publishing.

Simon MiraudoSimon Miraudo was the resident editor and film critic for popular online movie company Quickflix from 2008 to 2014, and won an award for his writing from the Australian Film Critics Association in 2014. He is a graduate of Curtin University, earning his Honours in Literary and Cultural Studies with his thesis Sympathy For Mr Vengeance: Reading Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy through Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment. During his time on Quickflix, he ran a regular film review/interview show and Talk Hard, and continues to co-host the film show The Podcasting Couch. He continues to write about film in his role as Content Producer for Student Edge.

jocelyn-moorhouseJocelyn Moorhouse is an Australian filmmaker. After studying film at AFTRS, she created a twelve-part series for the ABC, c/o The Bartons, based on her short film The Siege of the Bartons’ Bathroom. After working in television, she wrote and directed her first feature film Proof, starring Hugo Weaving, Geneviève Picot and Russell Crowe, which picked up six AFI Awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, and the Golden Camera Award at the Cannes Film Festival. She next directed the 1995 US drama How To Make An American Quilt starring Winona Ryder, Anne Bancroft and Ellen Burstyn, followed by 1997’s A Thousand Acres, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange and Jennifer Jason Leigh. She also worked as a producer on the films of her husband PJ Hogan, including 1994’s Muriel’s Wedding, 2002’s Unconditional Love (which she also co-wrote), and 2012’s Mental. Her most recent film is 2015’s The Dressmaker, starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving and Sarah Snook, which was nominated for thirteen AACTA Awards, winning five.

Anthony MorrisAnthony Morris is a freelance writer and film critic. He has written for Forte Magazine since 1993, and has been The Big Issue‘s DVD Editor since 2005. He reviews regularly for Empire and contributes to popular The Vine.com website. Along with Mel Campbell he co-wrote the romantic comedy novel The Hot Guy, which was released in 2017 via Echo Publishing.

rhys-muldoonRhys Muldoon is an Australian actor best known for films such as Danny Deckchair, The Crop and The Sapphires, and television shows such as Grass Roots, The Secret Life of Us, Bastard Boys, Lockie Leonard, House Husbands, Jack Irish, Rake, and many others. He has also presented beloved children’s program Play School, and appeared on The Glass House, Good News Week, The Project, The Drum and Q&A. He has appeared on stage as Tony Blair in David Hare’s Stuff Happens, as Mozart in a production of Amadeus, as Cooley in a 2006 production of Don’s Party, and in Steven Soderbergh’s Tot Mom for the Sydney Theatre Company. He co-wrote the children’s book Jasper & Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle with then-current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and released two albums of children’s music, 2012’s I’m Not Singing and 2015’s Perfect is the Enemy of Good, both nominated for ARIA Awards.

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey is one of cinema’s most influential film academics, helping to bring psychoanalysis into popular film theory. She wrote the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, where she coined the term “the male gaze”. She is also a filmmaker, co-directing Riddles of Sphynx (1977), AMY! (1980), Crystal Gazing (1982) and many others. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Josh NelsonJosh Nelson is an academic, critic and filmmaker, whose 2008 PhD thesis Ruptures & Regenerations: Violence, Trauma and Male Subjectivity in American Cinema (1976 - 2004) was nominated for a Chancellor’s Prize at the University of Melbourne. His short film Libido Ex Machine (which he co-wrote and co-directed with Rohan Spong) premiered at the 2009 Melbourne Underground Film Festival. He has written for many publications, including Kill Your Darlings, ArtsHub, The Big Issue and Screening the Past, and has appeared on Triple R’s Film Buff’s Forecast, SmartArts and The Breakfasters. He was also co-host of the film podcast Plato’s Cave.

Rebecca O’Brien is the producer of numerous highly-acclaimed films, including Palme d’Or winners The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), the BIFA-winning My Name Is Joe (1998), the César Award winning Land and Freedom (1995) and Ae Fond Kiss… (2004), as well as Bread and Roses (2000), Looking For Eric (2009) and The Angels’ Share (2012) all directed by Ken Loach. She became a producer after working as location manager on Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), worked as co-producer on Rowan Atkinson’s Bean (1997), produced Peter Wollen’s Friendship’s Death (1987), and was executive producer on Henrique Goldman’s Jean Charles (2009), Kenneth Glenaan’s Summer (2008) and Jim Loach’s Oranges and Sunshine (2010).

Martyn PedlerMartyn Pedler is a writer of all kinds of things: jokes for Australian TV, most of a PhD on superhero stories, tragic backstories for everyone who dies in the movie Under Siege, and years of film criticism mostly at Triple J Magazine and Time Out Melbourne. He wrote the indie arthouse drama EXIT, a feature film that premiered at Montreal’s Fantasia Festival, and has since given up criticism to pursue making his own movies.

Alex Ross Perry is a New York filmmaker behind films such as Impolex (2009) and The Color Wheel (2011). His breakout hit was Listen Up Philip (2014), a comedy-drama featuring Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Krysten Ritter and Jonathan Pryce. He followed that up with the acclaimed thriller Queen of Earth (2015) with Elisabeth Moss and Katherine Waterston. His next film was the ensemble drama Golden Exits (2017), and he is currently on post-production on punk rock drama Her Smell (2019). He is also one of the screenwriters behind Christopher Robin (2018), Disney’s AA Milne adaptation.

Mark ProtosevichMark Protosevich is a screenwriter whose credits include The Cell (2000), Poseidon (2006), I Am Legend (2007), Thor (2011) and Oldboy (2013). He also wrote the script for the unproduced Batman Triumphant, and worked with Steven Spielberg on early concepts for a fourth Jurassic Park. He is currently working on a Flash Gordon adaptation for director Matthew Vaughn.

Geraldine QuinnGeraldine Quinn is a singer and comedian based in Melbourne. She has performed in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brisbane Comedy Festival, Big Laugh Festival, New Zealand International Comedy Festival, New Zealand Fringe Festival, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Midsumma Festival, Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Melbourne Fringe Festival. In 2013, she received the Brian McCarthy Memorial Moosehead Award for the second time, this time for her show MDMA - Modern Day Maiden Aunt. She is the winner of the 2007 Green Room Award for Best Emerging Cabaret Artiste, performed with Paul Kelly at the Spiegeltent, and was inducted into the Who’s Who of Australian Women. She has also appeared on television shows Spicks and Specks, Adam Hills Tonight, Rockwiz, Stand Up Australia and The Weekly.

Mathieu RavierMathieu Ravier was born in France, and has lived and worked in San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, Toronto, Hong Kong and Manchester, and is now based in Sydney. He was the artistic director of the Commonwealth Film Festival before co-founding the non-profit events company The Festivalists and running the Sydney Film Festival’s popular Hub. He works as a consultant, journalist and lecturer, and has created the Possible Worlds and Young At Heart festivals.

Jennifer Reeder is a US filmmaker and artist. She first attracted notice for her performance and video work as “White Trash Girl”, a fictional identity through which she explored lower-income white culture in America. Her short film A Million Miles Away (2014) was nominated for a Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Other shorts directed by Reeder include Seven Songs About Thunder (2010), Girls Love Horses (2012), And I Will Rise if Only To Hold You Down (2012), Blood Below the Skin (2015), Crystal Lake (2016) and All Small Bodies (2017). Her debut feature film Signature Move (2017) premiered at South By Southwest, and was the Closing Night film at the BFI Glare festival in London. She currently teaches at the School of Art and History at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Daina Reid is an Australian director of film and television. She rose to prominence as a comic performer, appearing in sketch shows like Jimeoin, Full Frontal, and The Micallef Program. She has since become one of our most prolific directors, making episodes of Blue Heelers, The Secret Life of Us, MDA, All Saints, Satisfaction, City Homicide, Bed of Roses, Rush, Very Small Business, Nowhere Boys, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Offspring, The Wrong Girl, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, and Romper Stomper. She’s directed the mini-series Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo, Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story of INXS, and The Secret River, as well as the feature film I Love You Too, starring Brendan Cowell, Yvonne Strahovski, Peter Helliar, Megan Gale, and Peter Dinklage. She has begun working overseas, directing episodes of the acclaimed series The Handmaid’s Tale.

John RichardsJohn Richards is a writer best known for the ABC1 comedy series Outland. He has written for the stage and radio, and co-hosted the popular podcasts Boxcutters and Splendid Chaps. He is the co-creator of the audio science fiction comedy series Night Terrace, and has written for Channel 10, Triple J, Radio National and the RRR comedy series The Third Ear.

Eloise Ross is a writer, critic and academic based in Melbourne. She received a PhD in cinema studies from LaTrobe University, and has contributed to Senses of Cinema, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, The Guardian, Australian Book Review, The Essential, Junkee, Four Three Film, and others. She’s a programmer with the Melbourne Cinématèque, she’s talked film on ABC Radio National and Triple R, and is one of the hosts of the Cultural Capital podcast.

Rob RuminskiRob Ruminski has worked in film distribution and development with companies such as Rialto Distribution, Umbrella Entertainment and Siren Visual. As a freelance distribution consultant, he worked on films such as Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, Andrea Arnold’s Red Road, Raymond De Felitta’s City Island and James Harkness’s Birthday. He was development manager and script editor at Circe Films, before moving to marketing with Floate Design Partners and The Post Project.

Stephen A Russell is a writer and critic from Glasgow who has called Melbourne home for more than a decade. He has contributed film-focused content to SBS Movies, Metro magazine, The New Daily, Fairfax and The Saturday Paper, amongst others. His dulcet Scottish brogue and rogue snort can be heard on his fortnightly movie review spot with queer radio station Joy 94.9 FM, and occasional cameos on Radio National. He also hosts regular post-film Q&As for the major distributors and film festivals including MIFF and MQFF. Asking him to nominate a favourite film will probably involve more time than you intended to devote.

Noah Segan is an actor best known for his collaborations with director Rian Johnson, appearing in Brick, The Brothers Bloom, Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. He’s also been seen in numerous other works, Dawson’s Creek, CSI, House, Breaking Bad, Chicago Fire, Fanboys, Someone’s Knocking at the Door, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, Deadgirl, War Pigs and Tales of Halloween. He’s also worked behind the camera, producing the independent films Redeemer, Some Kind of Hate, and others. He also writes regularly about cinema for Birth. Movies. Death.

Lynn SheltonLynn Shelton is a Seattle-based filmmaker best known for Humpday, Your Sister’s Sister, Touchy Feely and Laggies. Her work has won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and the Independent Spirit Awards. She has also directed episodes of Mad Men, The New Girl and The Mindy Project, and has appeared as an actor in Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed, Greta Gerwig and Joe Swanberg’s Nights and Weekends, David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche, and many others.

Rochelle SiemienowiczRochelle Siemienowicz is a writer and critic. She was the editor at the Australian Film Institute from 2008 to 2013, and the film editor at The Big Issue from 2000 to 2012. She has written for numerous publications, including Screen Hub, Kill Your Darlings and SBS Film. Her memoir Fallen was published in 2015 through Affirm Press.

Jeremy SmithJeremy Smith is a US-based film critic who has written for Ain’t It Cool News under the pseudonym “Mr Beaks”, as well as his own name. He has also written for CHUD, Dark Horizons, Collider, The DVD Journal and Corona’s Coming Attractions, and is the co-host of the Twin Peaks-themed podcast Fire Talk With Me. He wrote the book George Clooney: Anatomy of an Actor, published by Cahiers du cinema and released in 2016, and is currently working on When It Was Cool: A Personal Journey Through 20 Years of Online Movie Writing.

Rohan Spong is a director who is fast becoming one of Australia’s most exciting documentary filmmakers. known. His 2009 feature T is for Teacher followed the experiences of four transgender school teachers in America; his 2010 film The Songs They Sang which the music and art created in the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania during World War II; his stunning 2011 film All the Way Through Evening looked at the music composed in New York’s East Village during the rise of HIV/AIDS; his 2016 film Winter At Westbeth (which received a Grand Jury Prize Special Mention at DOC NYC) followed the elderly residents of New York’s Westbeth Artists Housing as they continue to create the film, dance and poetry they’d made all of their lives.

Kriv StendersKriv Stenders is an Australian filmmaker known for 2005’s The Illustrated Family Doctor, 2005’s Blacktown, 2007’s Boxing Day and 2009’s Lucky Country. In 2011, his film Red Dog became the highest grossing Australian film of the year, and is currently the eighth highest-grossing Australian film of all time. In 2014 he directed the comedy-thriller Kill Me Three Times, featuring Simon Pegg as a hitman for hire, and in 2016 he made the prequel Red Dog: True Blue. He also directed the 2015 documentary Why Anzac with Sam Neill, the acclaimed 2015 mini-series The Principal, the dramatic telemovie Australia Day, and the documentary The Go-Betweens: Right Here.

Joe SwanbergJoe Swanberg is a prolific indie filmmaker who has made almost thirty films over the past decade alone. He rose to prominence on the festival circuit with films such as Hannah Takes The Stairs and LOL, before hitting the mainstream with 2013’s Drinking Buddies (starring Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston and Jake Johnson), 2014’s Happy Christmas (starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey and Lena Dunham), 2015’s Digging For Fire (starring Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Sam Rockwell, Ron Livingston and Orlando Bloom), and 2017’s Win It All (starring Jake Johnson). He is also an actor, appearing in many of his own films, as well as Zach Clark’s White Reindeer, Ti West’s segment of horror anthology V/H/S and Adam Wingard’s horror comedy You’re Next.

Chris TaylorChris Taylor is one of the members of The Chaser, co-writing and appearing on CNNNN, The Chaser’s War on Everything and The Hamster Wheel, as well as election specials The Chaser Decides and The Hamster Decides. Along with fellow Chaser member Craig Reucassel, he hosted the drive show Today Today on Triple J from 2004 to 2005. In 2010, he won an ARIA Award with Andrew Hansen and Craig Schuftan for the comedy radio program The Blow Parade. He toured with Andrew Hansen in 2014 with One Man Show, and in 2015 with In Conversation With Lionel Corn.

Victoria ThaineVictoria Thaine is an actor and filmmaker who has appeared in films such as The Night We Called It a Day, Caterpiller Wish, 48 Shades, Gone, Son of the Mask and The Loved Ones, as well as numerous television shows including All Saints, Blue Heelers, Two Twisted, Rain Shadow, BlackJack, Wilfred, Rake, Rush, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Mr & Mrs Murder and Nowhere Boys. She co-directed the 2010 short The Last Tupper, and wrote and directed the short The Kingdom of Doug, which won the Best Australian Short award at Flickerfest.

Brian Trenchard-SmithBrian Trenchard-Smith is a writer, director and Ozploitation legend. His credits include Turkey Shoot, StuntRock, Dead End Drive-In, The Man From Hong Kong and BMX Bandits. He featured heavily in Mark Hartley’s groundbreaking documentary Not Quite Hollywood, and Quentin Tarantino called him one of his favourite directors. Recently, he has directed the science fiction thriller Arctic Blast, the action film Absolute Deception, and the action comedy Drive Hard with John Cusack and Thomas Jane. He is also the author of the genre-mashing thriller novel The Headman’s Daughter, released in 2016.

Christos TsiolkasChristos Tsiolkas is one of Australia’s most popular authors. His first novel, Loaded, was published in 1995, and he has since written Jump Cuts, The Jesus Man, The Devil’s Playground, Dead Europe, The Slap and Barracuda. Many of his books have been turned into films: Loaded was made into Head-On by director Ana Kokkinos in 1998, and Dead Europe was adapted in 2012. The Slap was produced as a mini-series by Robert Connolly, Tony Ayres and others for ABC1 in 2011, and an American version is currently in production for NBC. Tsiolkas has also written directly for the screen, writing the screenplay Saturn’s Return, and working on the script for Ana Kokkinos’s Blessed. He reviews new release films for The Saturday Paper.

Alice TynanAlice Tynan is a freelance writer and award-winning film critic who writes regularly for Limelight Magazine, The Vine and The Big Issue. She has written for The Guardian and appeared on ABC Sydney radio. She co-hosted the Australian Film Television and Radio School’s Friday On My Mind, where she interviewed the best and brightest of the broadcast industry. She has appeared on The Slate Spoiler Special, BBC Radio 4’s The Film Programme, and is a co-host of The Spoiler Guys podcast.

George ViscasGeorge Viscas is a film lecturer and filmmaker. He wrote and directed the short film The Brace, which screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 1980, as well as Boss Boy, which was nominated for an Australian Film Institute Award in 1988. He has lectured on film around the world, and taught film history at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Andrew Kevin Walker is a screenwriter who is perhaps best known for writing the screen play to Se7en (1995), featuring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, and directed by David Fincher. He also wrote the screenplays for Brainscan (1994), Hideaway (1995), 8MM (1999), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Wolfman (2010), and Nerdland (2016). He wrote two shorts for the BMW film series The Hire with Clive Owen, including Ambush, directed by John Frankenheimer, and The Follow, directed by Wong Kar-wai. He also penned unfilmed drafts of high-profile films like Batman vs Superman, X-Men, and a a film about the Silver Surfer. He performed uncredited rewrites on films such as Event Horizon (1997), The Game (1997), Stir of Echoes (1999), Fight Club (1999), You can also spot him in David Fincher’s Panic Room (2002) as a sleepy neighbour, and you can pick up his debut novel Old Man Johnson on Kindle.

Sarah WardSarah Ward is a film critic who has written for Screen Daily, At the Cinema, SBS Film, ArtsHub, Trespass Magazine, FilmInk, Metro, Concrete Playground and many others. She ran the Play/Pause review website, and has appeared regularly on ABC digital radio. She worked in marketing for the Brisbane International Film Festival, and served on the jury of the Possible Worlds Festival. In 2013, Flavorwire named her as one of the “15 Great Female Film Critics You Ought To Be Reading”.

Richard WattsRichard Watts is an arts journalist and broadcaster, who has hosted Triple R’s SmartArts since 2005. He is the National Performing Arts Journalist at ArtsHub, was the Artistic Director of Express Media for five years, and spent seven years on the board of the Melbourne Fringe Festival including three years as chair. He has been involved in the programming of numerous festivals, including Next Wave, the National Young Writers’ Festival, and the Melbourne Queer Festival.

Scott Weinberg is a film critic, horror aficionado, and producer. For nearly two decades, he has written reviews, analysis and set reports for outlets that include Nerdist, Playboy, Thrillist, Cinematical, Apollo Movie Guide, DVD Talk, Hollywood Bitchslap, eFilmCritic and FearNET. He co-hosts the podcast 80s All Over alongside fellow Hi4H alum Drew McWeeny, in which they go through 1980s cinema by release date, month by month. He is also involved behind the scenes, producing the 2016 horror film Found Footage 3D.

Emma Westwood is a film writer, journalist and commentator whose work has appeared in Empire, Fangoria, FilmInk, Screem, Senses of Cinema, ReviewAsia, Metro, and many others. She was arts editor of Melbourne weekly stress press The Music (formerly Inpress) for four years from 2000, and penned “Curtain Call”, a regular performing arts column for The Age. Her first book was 2008’s Monster Movies, about her love affair with horror cinema. Her second is a non-fiction book about David Cronenberg’s seminal The Fly. She is a regular contributor to Triple R’s film show Plato’s Cave, and is co-founder of content creation company Bakewood Studios.

Cate Wolfe

Cate Wolfe is an actor best known for playing nurse Mattie O’Brien in ABC1’s The Doctor Blake Mysteries. She has appeared in Winners & Losers, Australia on Trial and Offspring. She made her feature film debut in the Spierig Brothers’ Predestination, alongside Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook and Noah Taylor, and appears in Paul Anthony Nelson’s film noir Trench.

Edgar Wright is the filmmaker behind countless modern cult classics. After writing and directing his first feature A Fistful of Fingers (1995), he went on to work in television, directing countless series including the cult classic Spaced, written by Simon Pegg & Jessica Hynes. Along with co-writer and star Pegg, he made the Cornetto trilogy Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013). As a screenwriter he has worked on Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) and Marvel’s Ant-Man (2015). In 2010 he directed the postmodern comic adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and in 2017 released his music-fuelled getaway driver film Baby Driver.

Julia ZemiroJulia Zemiro is a popular television host best known for hosting RockWiz and Eurovision on SBS, and Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery on ABC1. She is also known as a comedian, actor, singer, writer and director, and has appeared on Totally Full Frontal, Good News Week, The Wedge, Thank God You’re Here, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and the Stephen Fry-hosted quiz show QI.