Critics Campus: Where Are They Now? (Part 4)
In the fourth instalment of a series in which we shine a spotlight on Critics Campus’s illustrious alumni, we speak to Andréas Giannopoulos (2016 cohort), Jess Ellicott (2016 cohort) and Harry Windsor (2014 cohort) about where their professional paths have led since their participation in MIFF’s incubator program for emerging critics.
Andréas Giannopoulos
Since your time as a Critics Campus mentee in 2016, where has your career taken you?
I came to Critics Campus with a background in filmmaking, but an equal interest in film theory and criticism, having just finished an undergraduate film and TV course at Swinburne University of Technology. Since then, the two disciplines have been an uneasy partnership in my life. The novelty of being a filmmaker involved in criticism helped me be accepted into the directing postgraduate course at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in Sydney in 2017, where I also worked as a screen studies lecturer and social media editor while studying. Despite not doing any external critical writing during this time, I felt the intellectual and professional skills I learnt through Critics Campus shaped everything I did in some way.
After graduating and moving back home to Melbourne, I stepped up my involvement in the Melbourne Cinémathèque, and am currently working there as a co-curator and program coordinator. Funnily, this has led me back to writing, as I’ve written CTEQ Annotations on Film articles for films screening in the Cinémathèque’s program, available at Senses of Cinema. Also for Senses, I recently wrote an interview-based feature surveying the various filmmakers who have emerged from the Cinémathèque’s membership, and for Rough Cut was fortunate enough to interview Mike Leigh. I’m currently preparing a new short film.
How did Critics Campus help you on this journey?
Being a Critics Campus mentee was a practical and meaningful introduction to the various roles and aspects of criticism, and helped me decide that my strengths and passions weren’t in pursuing a career strictly in written film criticism, but instead incorporating critical practice into my film work. It also introduced me to a countrywide web of Campus participants past and current, and continues to introduce me to new mentees every year. Some have welcomed me to their home state with open arms, some have become my best friends, and some have passed on invaluable work and opportunities to me; many have done all of the above.
Not to mention, being granted a MIFF Festival Passport for the festival’s full duration was incredible exposure to international contemporary filmmaking and discourses in film programming. A lot of what I saw in 2016 still impacts my filmmaking and thinking on films. A scene in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s five-hour epic Happy Hour involving balancing chairs gave me a high that I’m still chasing. Also mind-altering was the Jerry Lewis retrospective, emboldened by two great Lewisian critics’ presence as Campus mentors that year: Jonathan Rosenbaum and Chris Fujiwara. MIFF’s programmers took a huge swing on an unusual and not exactly trendy figure still in the process of being reclaimed by “serious” film discourse. Their boldness planted a hyperawareness in me of what else was being shown and discussed at festivals and cinematheques around the world, leading to my own interest in programming.
Jess Ellicott
Since your time as a Critics Campus mentee in 2016, where has your career taken you?
Amusingly, I was a more prolific writer pre-Critics Campus than post. Since then, I’ve spent my time working in the Australian film industry across various marketing and programming roles. I was at Transmission Films for several years, working on the theatrical release of films like Carol, Sweet Country and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (although, to be honest, my all-time favourite campaign was Book Club). Then, in 2020, MIFF’s very own Kate Jinx gave me the life-altering opportunity to get a start in film programming at Golden Age Cinema, where I spent four years pushing my agenda of screening Best in Show as much as humanly possible. I fell hard for film programming, and I haven’t looked back. Late last year, I joined the Sydney Film Festival team as Program Manager. I still enjoy writing about film, and now I mostly contribute occasional capsule reviews to The Big Issue. To me, programming and criticism are inextricably linked, and my foundational years as a critic made me who I am.
How did Critics Campus help you on this journey?
At Critics Campus, I had the immense fortune of spending a week with Jonathan Rosenbaum as my mentor, who remains one of my heroes. As I was acutely aware this was a likely never-to-be-repeated opportunity, I spent most of the week asking him endless questions about his life and his thoughts on cinema, and trying to dodge any focus on myself or my writing. I don’t regret a single second. He made me realise that a life devoted to film was not only possible, but also an attractive and worthwhile pursuit.
Harry Windsor
Since your time as a Critics Campus mentee in 2014, where has your career taken you?
I began writing reviews for The Hollywood Reporter at the end of 2014, soon after Critics Campus. In 2016, I started a job at Inside Film magazine – first as a journalist, then as the magazine’s editor. And I've been writing about film and television for The Monthly since 2015.
How did Critics Campus help you on this journey?
I'd only been published once before Critics Campus. The encouragement I received in Melbourne from people like Tom Ryan and Danny Kasman made me believe I could write and should keep going. My mentor was Shane Danielsen, and we’re still close friends a decade later (he still reads the odd draft, in fact, though it’s been a long time since he was obliged to do so). I’m still in touch with David Rooney, too. David made contact after the festival and introduced me to his editor at The Hollywood Reporter; they were looking for an Australian-based critic to replace Megan Lehmann. Megan very kindly showed me the ropes, and we’ve since become friends. The THR byline is probably what got me the job at Inside Film, and so forth. I started writing for The Monthly after meeting Nick Feik, the then-editor, at MIFF … my career, such as it is, is hard to imagine without Critics Campus. It introduced me to the festival circuit, to professional critics, and it set me on a path I simply wouldn't have gone down without it.