Co-presented with the Australian Writers’ Guild

Join the Australian Writers' Guild's Christine Rogers in conversation with the screenwriters of some of this year's most anticipated Australian festival features, including Matthew Whittet (Girl Asleep), Damien Power (Killing Ground), Cris Jones (The Death and Life of Otto Bloom) and Sotiris Dounoukos (Joe Cinque's Consolation).

Christine Rogers is a writer and filmmaker. Her recent projects include writing and directing the science-fiction feature film I Am Evangeline, featuring Georgia Flood, and the documentary Remain in Light, focusing on award-winning architect Sean Godsell. She has multiple credits in short drama, educational film and digital stories that have screened at international festivals, including Anne and Richard (MIFF, NZIFF etc), The Forest (SIFF, MIFF, Clermont Ferrand, etc.) and Violent Hands (Canterbury, SIFF, MIFF). Christine is currently the chairperson of the Victorian chapter of the Australian Writer’s Guild. She also creates web content for Briarbird.com.

Matthew Whittet is a writer and actor. He graduated from NIDA’s acting course in 1997 and his film credits as an actor include Moulin Rouge, Australia, The Great Gatsby and Sleeping Beauty. As a writer his credits include for the stage: Seventeen, Cinderella, Old Man (Belvoir); Fugitive, School Dance, Girl Asleep, Big Bad Wolf (Windmill Theatre); and Harbinger (Brink Productions). Matthew’s feature film adaptation of his most recent play for Windmill, Girl Asleep, had its world premiere at the 2015 Adelaide Film Festival, where it won the Foxtel Audience Award for most popular feature film. It also won the Official Competition Grand Jury Prize and the Future Wave Award at the 2016 Seattle Film Festival. Recently Matthew recorded his first radio play, The Hidden City, for the ABC. He was also a 2013/2014 Sidney Myer Creative Fellow.

Damien Power grew up in Launceston, Tasmania: pop: 60,000; cinema: 1. It was there, as a teenager at the local film society, that he fell in love with movies. After moving to Sydney to take up a position on the Classification Board at the Office of Film and Literature Classification, he started writing and directing film, and having made a few shorts, completed an MA in Directing at AFTRS. Since graduating he has written and directed several award-winning shorts that have screened at festivals worldwide including Venice and Busan, MIFF and Sydney as well as online as part of YouTube/Scott Free’s inaugural Your Film Festival. Damien was recently awarded an AFTRS Creative Fellowship to make a short experimental drama. That film, Hitchhiker, will debut later this year. Damien’s first feature, the survival thriller Killing Ground will be released theatrically in Australia in 2016 by Mushroom Pictures and sold internationally by Films Distribution.

Sotiris Dounoukos is an award-winning graduate of the VCA School of Film and Television, where he received the Outstanding Post-Graduate Student Award. His short films have screened extensively at international film festivals. Sotiris’ training includes tutorship under the dramaturg Nico Lathouris and he is a member of the Australian Directors Guild. He is currently developing several feature projects and has participated in the Binger Film Lab, Screen Australia’s SPARK program, eQuinoxe and the Accelerator Program of MIFF.