Festival Guests – Feature Filmmakers & Guest Speakers
This year's Festival features an array of guests from all over the world. From those making their eye-catching feature debuts to veteran directors, MIFF gives you the opportunity to come and see the people behind the films.
 Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon Australian born Fiona Gordon makes up one half of the hilarious comedy duo that brings The Fairy to MIFF for Opening Night with her Belgian husband Dominique Abel. In 1980 Fiona arrived in Paris from Windsor University, where she attended Lecoq School for two years, training alongside Dominique to be a clown and entertainer. After a few fledgling attempts at theatre performances and street art though the early 80s in Paris, Abel and Gordon emigrated to Canada where 1985 offered them their big break with La Danse Des Poules (Dance of the Chickens), a show they performed over 2000 times in more than 20 countries. 1994 saw the pair star in their first short, directed by Bruno Remy, which led to a number of short films. In 2004 they began shooting on Iceberg, their first feature length film. After premiering their film The Fairy this year, the couple are sure to create slapstick mayhem on the red carpet for MIFF. |
 Genevieve Bailey is an Australian filmmaker obsessed with story telling and does so through writing, directing, shooting and editing drama, comedy, documentary and music videos. Genevieve's films have screened internationally at festivals and have picked up over 25 awards to date. Over the last four years Genevieve has enjoyed tutoring in film and video at the University of Melbourne and Deakin University schools of Creative Arts. At this year's MIFF, Bailey presents her debut feature film, the documentary I Am Eleven. |
 Matthew Bate is a filmmaker and the co-director of Closer Productions. He creates documentaries dealing with obsessive people, pop-culture and outsider artists. Bates’s films are marked by unique storytelling devices and an experimental visual style. Bates’s films include the short The Mystery of Flying Kicks (MIFF 2010), a film exploring what relationship sneakers on telephone wires have with murder, drugs, sex and politics. The film was made entirely from contributions of imagery and phone message bank stories from the global online public. Bates attends MIFF to present his debut feature-length documentary, Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure. |
 David Bradbury is one of Australia’s best-known and most successful documentary filmmakers. His films have been shown on all the major Australian commercial and public broadcast networks as well as overseas. He has won countless international film festival prizes and been the winner of five AFI awards and two Academy Award nominations. Bradbury attends this year's MIFF to present his documentary profile of legendary Australian filmmaker Paul Cox, On Borrowed Time. |
 Lisa Gerrard is an internationally renowned musician and film composer. First rising to prominence in ambient world music duo Dead Can Dance, she is also known for collaborations with a diverse range of popular musicians, including Orbital and Neil Finn. In her work as a film composer, she has composed a number of acclaimed scores, including Michael Mann's The Insider, Ridley Scott's Gladiator, and Niki Caro's Whale Rider. She has also worked with some of film's most high profile composers, including Hans Zimmer and Ennio Morricone. She is the composer for MIFF 2011 presentation, Vibeke Løkkeberg's Tears of Gaza. As part of this year’s MIFF Talking Pictures events, Gerrard presents a Composing Masterclass, giving a rare insight into the creative process of composing for a film. |
 Hailing from the USA, Gibney graduated from Yale and later attended UCLA film school, where he directed his first documentary, The Ruling Classroom (1980). He has directed a number of documentaries over the years; some of his standout titles have included Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008), Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and his Academy Award winning film Taxi to the Dark Side (2007). The acclaimed documentary filmmaker is in town to introduce his latest films, both screening at MIFF, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer and Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place. He is also in Melbourne to do research for his upcoming documentary on Julian Assange and Wikileaks. |
 Annie Goldson has been producing and directing award-winning documentaries, docudramas and experimental film/video for 20 years in the United States and New Zealand. She is known for producing films that are both politically engaged and formally innovative, such as Punitive Damage, released in cinemas in Australia, the US and New Zealand in 1999 and sold to major broadcasters such as HBO-Cinemax and ABC. Annie has completed four films in the last four years, Sheilas: 28 Years On (2004), a history of second-wave feminism in New Zealand; Pacific Solution: From Afghanistan to Aotearoa (2005); Elgar’s Enigma: Biography of a Concerto (2006) and An Island Calling (2008). Goldson attends MIFF to present her documentary, Brother Number One. |
 Jon Hewitt is an Australian filmmaker, having made five features to date. Along the way he has garnered critical acclaim, festival premieres, awards, controversy and critical success. Hewitt’s reputation as an uncompromising writer and filmmaker, an actor’s director and a genre innovator was elevated to a new level in 2008 with his first mainstream feature Acolytes (MIFF 2008), a teen chiller starring Joel Edgerton. Hewitt attends this year’s MIFF to present his gritty thriller set in Sydney’s underworld, X. |
 Janine Hosking is an Australian documentary filmmaker. Hosking produced and directed the documentary features My Khmer Heart (2001) and Ganja Queen (2007) for HBO. Her 2004 documentary Mademoiselle and the Doctor was nominated for Best Documentary by Film Critics Circle and was an Official Selection for the Joris Ivens Award at the Amsterdam International Film Festival. She won the Walkley Award for journalism in 1998. For this year’s MIFF program she presents her new documentary I’m Not Dead Yet. |
 Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde is one of the founders and co-directors of Closer Productions. She works as a director and producer making provocative and intimate drama and documentary work. Her work has been shown in numerous compilations and screened on TV, in galleries and festivals around the world, including Sundance, Museum of Modern Art, New York and The National Portrait Gallery, Australia. Hyde is a guest of MIFF, along with her collaborator Bryan Mason; both will present their debut documentary feature, Life in Movement. |
 Steve Kaplan is one of the screen industry’s most sought-after experts on comedy. In addition to having taught at the likes of UCLA, NYU and Yale, Kaplan created the HBO Workspace, the HBO New Writers Program and was co-founder and Artistic Director of Manhattan Punch Line Theatre. He regularly serves as a consultant and script doctor to some of the biggest names in the business such as DreamWorks, Disney, HBO, Paramount and Touchstone. As part of this year’s MIFF 37°South Market industry and public lectures, Kaplan presents a series of seminars on comedy writing and directing, including the Steve Kaplan Comedy Intensive and The Comic Premise with Steve Kaplan. He will also take part in an In Conversation with French comedy great Francis Veber. |
 New York based director Braden King first grabbed the attention of audiences with his 1998 release of The Dutch Habour: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back, which screened at over 20 international film festivals. Braden studied film at the USC School of Cinema-Television and graduated in 1993. He is a well-respected director and has been a guest lecture at a number of Ivy League Colleges across the USA. His work has been screened on too many networks to name – some standouts include HBO, the BBC and Sundance Channel. He is in Melbourne to introduce HERE, a film co-scripted with Melbourne writer Dani Valent. |
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Abi has a Certificate in Film and Television Production from Unitec School of Performance and Screen Arts, and a Bachelor of Arts in Film, Television and Media Studies from the University of Auckland. She has worked in television as a presentation director (Juice TV), in film as a casting assistant (Aidiko Insane – Kahukura Productions) and in continuity (Two Cars, One Night – Defender Films), and has dabbled in acting. As a writer, her play A Room That Echoes was produced as part of the 2002 Young and Hungry season at Bats theatre. King-Jones has previously collaborated with director Errol Wright on Te Whanau o Aotearoa – Caretakers of the Land (2003) and The Last Resort (2006). Abi King-Jones attends MIFF to present her latest collaboration with director Errol Wright, Operation 8. |
 Roseanne Liang is a New Zealand Chinese writer and director. Liang’s first film was a documentary entitled Banana in a Nutshell (2005), which premiered to huge acclaim at the 2005 New Zealand International Film Festival. Following the film’s success, Roseanne was named Best Director Award at the Asia NZ Film Festival and SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year Award. Subsequently she also won the Best Director of Documentary Award at the 2006 Asian Festival of 1st Films and the 2007 New Zealand Chinese Association Significant Achievement Award. Since the documentary was released, Liang has also worked as a writer and director on the TV3 sketch comedy series A Thousand Apologies and her 2008 short film Take 3 won awards at the Berlin and Valladolid Film Festivals. Liang is a guest of MIFF, presenting her new feature film My Wedding and Other Secrets. |
 After graduating with a Masters in Film at Flinders University, Craig has worked as director and EP/Producer on seven films and telemovies and a number of documentaries. These include the Australian/UK coproduction Black and White with Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance and Kerry Fox, and Heaven's Burning starring Russell Crowe. Both films were festival hits at over thirty prestigious international film festivals. Lahiff’s latest feature is an Australian rural-noir thriller, Swerve; he attends MIFF to present its world premiere screening. |
 Born in Poland, Lech Majewski studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw before moving onto the National Film School in Łódź. After completing The Knight, martial law was declared in Poland during the 80s and he emigrated to the UK and then to the USA. In 2006 the Museum of Modern Art honoured him with a retrospective of his work – the first-ever full retrospective of a Polish film maker. He comes to Melbourne with his new film The Mill and the Cross, blending the boundaries of reality, fact, fiction and art. |
 Growing up in South Africa, Sweden and Spain, German director Pia Marais seems to have been everywhere and learnt something from everyone. Studying sculpture and photography in London, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf, she went on to study film and television in Berlin. After directing a number of shorts she made her first feature, The Unpolished, in 2007, which screened at international film festivals and won various prizes, including the 2007 Tiger Award for the Rotterdam Film Festival. Marais brings At Ellen’s Age to MIFF 2011, which was developed in the Résidence du Festival de Cannes. It is a coming-of-age drama about coping with new turns in life. |
 Bryan Mason is a multi-skilled director of Closer Productions and an award winning editor and DOP. Working closely with his partner Sophie Hyde, Mason has shot and edited a number of short films. Mason and Sophie Hyde are both guests of MIFF, presenting their debut documentary feature Life in Movement. |
 Pollyanna McIntosh grew up in Portugal and Colombia before moving back to her birthplace of Scotland where she first began performing, on stage, at The Edinburgh Festival. After moving to Los Angeles in 2004 McIntosh has appeared in theatre productions of The Woolgatherer, directed by Anne Dudek (Mad Men, Big Love) and David Dyan Fisher (24). McIntosh has since appeared in feature films such as Sex and Death 101 (2007), Land of the Lost (2009) and Burke and Hare (2011). McIntosh stars in Lucky McKee’s The Woman, and attends MIFF as a guest to present its Australian debut screening. |
 Lucky McKee is an American film director. McKee wrote the script for his first feature film, May (2002), while studying at USC. The film premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival where it was picked up by Lions Gate for limited theatrical release and has since garnered a cult following. More recently, McKee directed Red (2008), an adaptation of a Jack Ketchum novel, and produced the film The Lost (2006), also based on a novel by Ketchum. McKee attends MIFF to present his controversial new feature The Woman. |
 Born in Berkley California, Mike Mills has been a creative force in New York City throughout art and entertainment for many years. Apart from being an accomplished graphic designer in his own right, he has created music videos for Moby, Yoko Ono and Air as well as designing album covers for Beastie Boys, Beck and Sonic Youth. Mills brings to Melbourne the Australian premiere of Beginners, his first film since his critically acclaimed Thumbsucker (2005). |
 The founding member of Massachusetts-based rock band The Lemonheads, Jesse Peretz left the group prior to its break-out success, instead focusing on a directing career spanning music videos, commercials and feature films. He has directed music videos for the likes of the Foo Fighters, Jack Black and The Breeders. His feature films include First Love, Last Rites (1997), The Château (2001) and Fast Track (2006). Peretz joins this year’s MIFF guest line-up to present his new comedy, Our Idiot Brother. |
 Australian born and raised, Rymer crossed the ocean to attended the University of Southern California to study film in 1981. Rymer’s work includes Angel Baby (1995), which he wrote and directed. The film garnered numerous awards around the world and in Australia including Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, the Australian Writers Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Michael Rymer is at MIFF to present his new feature Face to Face. |
 Fred Schepisi began his production career in the advertising world before joining Cinesound Productions then starting the Film House where for 20 plus years he directed both commercials and documentaries. Fred was recently awarded the Order of Australia for his service to the Australian film industry first as a mentor and then as a director, producer and screenwriter. At this year’s MIFF, Schepisi presents his first Australian feature since Evil Angels, an adaptation of Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm. He also speaks about the process of adapting this classic Australian novel at the Talking Picture forum Fred Schepisi: In the Eye of the Storm. |
 Kriv Stenders began making films in his teen years, later attending the Australian Film, Television & Radio School majoring in cinematography. He then directed and shot a number of short films, documentaries, music videos and televsion commercials. Stenders’ work includes Two/Out (1998), The Illustrated Family Doctor (2005), Blacktown (2005) and Lucky Country (2009). For this year’s MIFF program, Stenders presents latest feature, the Aussie bush yarn Red Dog. |
 Graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Fine Arts, Spurlock started his career as a playwright, writing The Phoneix, an awarding winning play and a hit at festivals including the New York Fringe. His successful webcast I Bet You, ushered him into the film and television industry with MTV picking up his show. Spurlock’s Oscar nominated documentary Super Size Me brought him much-deserved recognition. Since then he has created a string of documentaries and now he is in Melbourne to introduce his latest satirical hit, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. |
 Mary Stephen is an accomplished film editor, best known as Eric Rohmer's long time collaborator. She became Rohmer's Chief Editor in the early 90s with Winter's Tale and all the subsequent Rohmer films up to the last one, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2006). In the last few years she has also worked in Turkey, Canada and China, on films such as Du Haibin's 1428 (MIFF 2010) and My Marlon and Brando (MIFF 2008). At MIFF this year you can see her work on Majority, by Seren Yüce. Mary Stephen attends MIFF to present her Editing Masterclass as part of MIFF's Talking Pictures events. |
 Since graduating with an MA in English in 1986, Wendall Thomas has been one of Hollywood’s leading script developers, working under a myriad of different titles. From story editor to entertainment director, she seems to have done it all. She has been an adjunct Professor of Screenwriting in the Graduate Film School at UCLA for the last 14 years and has consulted for various organisations including the Atelier du Cinéma Européen Producing Program in Paris. She will be delivering a series of seminars during the Festival’s last week. With lectures covering Making a Scene: The Magic and Mechanics of Scene Structure, Wake Up, Time to Die! – Dialogue and Genre and Transformation: Constructing a Character Arc. These lectures are must for anyone in industry – or for anyone wanting to get in. |
 This German filmmaker and music video director leads his own film production company, the Berlin-based LALA film. In addition to numerous music videos he directed the award-winning short Nachtland (1995), a recipient of the New York Academy Camera Prize at the 1996 Berlin International Film Festival. His feature films include Turn (1997) and SommerHundeSöhne (2004). His latest film Khodorkovsky, a portrait of former Russian businessman and powerbroker Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been the subject of repeated espionage, with footage having been stolen twice, both in Bali (where the film was being cut) and in Germany. Tuschi attends MIFF this year to present this controversial documentary, Khodorkovsky. |
 Francis Veber began his writing career while serving in the military, contributing to BLED, a publication of the Algerian Army. After his military discharge, he worked as a radio reporter and then segued to writing scripts for the TV series L'Agence interim. With 1971's There Once Was a Cop (1971), Veber began his feature career in earnest. For much of the 1970s, he served as writer of a number of successful, farcical comedies that recalled the work of Neil Simon in that most revolved around odd couples. Among his more popular scripts were Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1973), La Cage aux folles (1978), for which he shared an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Coup de tete (1979). He made his directorial debut with Le Jouet in 1976. Veber's infectious comedies include three pairings of Pierre Richard and Gerard Depardieu: Le Chevre (1982), Les Comperes (1983) and Les Fugitifs (1986). Several of these proved so successful in his native France that they were remade in Hollywood. By the 80s, in fact, Veber was already gaining a toehold in Hollywood, due partly to the success of La Cage aux folles. Billy Wilder used Veber's play Le Contrat as the basis for what became his last film – Buddy Buddy (1981). He made his American directorial debut with Three Fugitives (1989), based on his 1986 hit. Out on a Limb (1991), however, was an artistic disaster that dampened Veber's US career. He went on to pen the script for the Depardieu comedy My Father, the Hero (1994) before returning to France where he enjoyed renewed success with Le Jaguar (1996). Veber crafted one of biggest hits and most artistically satisfying films in his long career with 1998's The Dinner Game. It was only natural that Hollywood immediately snapped up the remake rights and produce Dinner For Schmucks (2010). Veber visits MIFF to present three industry-focused lectures on mastering comedy in film – Francis Veber en Français,Francis Veber Lecture in English and the Francis Veber Masterclass – in addition to doing an in conversation with another master of comedy, Steve Kaplan. |
 Five feature films into his career, US director Ti West has established himself as one of the most distinctive and inventive horror directors working today. West, hailing from the east coast state of Delaware, has previously directed The Wicked (2001), The Roost (2005), Trigger Man (2007), Cabin Fever 2: Spring Break (2009) and House of the Devil (2009). At MIFF this year West presents his update to the haunted house genre, The Innkeepers. |
 Matt Whelan is best known to New Zealand audiences for his role as the hapless Brad Caulfield in South Pacific Pictures’ hit comedy-drama series Go Girls. His outstanding work in that role won Matt the award for Best Supporting Actor at the 2010 Qantas Film and Television Awards. Whelan‘s previous film credits include Show of Hands (2008) and a small role in Taika Waititi’s debut feature film Eagle vs Shark (2007). He stars in Roseanne Liang’s My Wedding and Other Secrets, which he is in town to present. |
 Randall Wood is an Australian director whose films have screened at festivals internationally. Randall is also an ACS award-winning cinematographer, shooting for networks such as SBSI, ABC TV, TV ASHAI, Nippon TV and BBC3. He’s studied scriptwriting and feature film directing at the Binger Film Lab in Amsterdam and has a degree in music composition and performance from Queensland Conservatorium. Randall Wood is at MIFF to present the world premiere of his new feature documentary, The Curse of the Gothic Symphony. |
 Adrian Wootton is chief executive of Film London, director of crime and mystery festival Crime Scene, and a program advisor to the London Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. A former director of the London Film Festival, British Film Institute (BFI) and the UK’s National Film Theatre, Wootton has also served as BFI head of exhibition, director of Nottingham’s Broadway Media Centre and director of the Bradford Playhouse. He contributes articles on screen culture to the Guardian and Sight & Sound, regularly broadcasts and reviews films on BBC Radio 4 and is working on several book projects. Adrian Wootton’s Australian talks series is exclusive to Melbourne thanks to MIFF 37ºSouth Market & Accelerator with The Wheeler Centre. Wootton will present Chandleresque: Raymond Chandler on Screen, Celluloid Sinatra, King on Screen: Elvis in the Movies, Graham Greene on Screen and Howard Hawks: An Introduction. |
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Errol Wright is a New Zealand documentary filmmaker whose credits include Te Whanau o Aotearoa – Caretakers of the Land (2003), which screened as part of the 2003 Wellington International Film Festival, and The Last Resort (2006), which travelled around the New Zealand with the New Zealand International Film Festival. The film went on to screen at many other festivals as well as on Maori TV and the Documentary Channel. Errol Wright attends MIFF to present his collaboration with director Abi King-Jones, Operation 8. |
 Tom Zubrycki is an Australian filmmaker whose award winning documentaries have earned an international reputation for their truthfulness, realism and humanity. Tackling diverse issues from immigration and racial prejudice to civil unrest and unionism, Tom Zubrycki allows his films participants to tell their individual stories, giving the viewer astonishing insights into ordinary lives touched by extraordinary events. Zubrycki attends MIFF to present his new documentary The Hungry Tide. |