Alexander Holiday

Alexander Holiday is a writer and producer working across page, stage and screen, based on Gadigal land in Eora. A lover and promoter of independent arts, they are drawn to exciting, genre-forward work, with a critical eye to contemporary social resonance. They were the founder and publisher of Booker Magazine, a print-exclusive quarterly dedicated to platforming emerging artists in Eora and surrounds. Their practice extends into theatre and film production, with their screen work having shown at St Kilda Film Festival, Antenna and DocPlay. They love to laugh.

Instagram: @defunctgirl

Letterboxd: @defunctgirl

Location: Eora (Sydney)

Movie location I call home: The Cavalcade of Perversions (from John Waters’s Multiple Maniacs).

What was the film or experience that made you want to write about the screen? Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris. It was weird, it was funny, it pulled no punches. I had never seen something that encapsulated the bizarre insularity of Australian culture, nationalism, protectionism … all within a spiky little Holden. It took me down a rabbit hole of car crash films and Oz indie nightmares, and I never came out.

Why do you think film criticism matters in 2026? Images are currently undergoing a transformation from a communicative tool to a raw material of emotional affect. It is now becoming less certain when you look at something that there was any sort of ‘author’ behind it. Generative images are more about what an individual feels, rather than truth or story. Film criticism insists on coherence, consciousness and meaning in a time when reality is superimposed by screen images.

Who is a critic that inspires you? Mark Fisher. His final works were a reminder that criticism is primarily about the better world to come.

In five words (or less), the future of cinema is: Neo-Gnostic sex and violence.

What’s the best thing you’ve seen this year so far? Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. A tight cast doing the most with a few cabins and matte paintings (which are so back, by the way) – it is shamelessly sexy, scary and delightfully wet all over. It’s a movie that loves movies, and loves people who love movies.

What’s your MIFF 2026 theme music? ‘Film Star Prelude’ – Zion Garcia.