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This is a MIFF Talks/Melbourne Conversations event, co-presented with City of Melbourne


Australian cinema beautifully captures our landscapes and our suburbs. But where are our cities? Join filmmakers, critics and academics as they explore the few examples of how Australian cities are represented on film, and imagine what Australian cities on film might look like as our urban populations boom.

Panellists: Lesley Chow, Pia Emery and Paul Ireland; moderated by Esther Anatolitis

Lesley Chow is an Australian writer on film and music. She was president of the film critics' jury at Toronto in 2018, and has also been on the jury at Venice, Berlin and Istanbul. She is associate editor of Bright Lights Film Journal and writes on music for The Quietus, as well as publishing in the Times Literary Supplement, Salon, Senses of Cinema, Cineaste, Photofile, Pop Matters and CNN. She is currently writing a book about female anomalies in popular music.

Pia Emery is a location manager who has scouted and managed locations for film and television production in and around Melbourne (and beyond) for the past twenty years. Some of her credits include Welcher & Welcher, Kath & Kim, The Slap (MIFF 2011), Nowhere Boys (MIFF 2013), Cut Snake (MIFF 2014), Please Like Me, The Ex-PM and the upcoming Australian/Chinese co-production feature film The Whistleblower.

Paul Ireland was born and raised in Scotland. He trained as an actor at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. He has worked in film, theatre and television for the past 25 years. Measure for Measure is his second feature film as a director, producer and writer, after his debut film Pawno (MIFF 2015), which achieved much critical acclaim including six AACTA nominations.

Esther Anatolitis is a writer and facilitator with an abiding interest in creative city-making and the role of the artist in urban and regional development. Following her formative work on Serve City: Interactive Urbanism at the Bauhaus, her collaboration with Ukrainian artist Oksana Chepelyk on the experimental film Urban Multimedia Utopia was presented at film festivals all over Europe and won numerous awards. Esther has taught into masters studio programs with a focus on the design of new regional cities at RMIT Architecture + Urban Design, where she has also been an external critic and examiner for 15 years. She is Deputy Chair of Contemporary Arts Precincts, currently developing the site of the former Collingwood Tech (opening in 2020). As Executive Director of NAVA, Esther leads policy, advocacy and action for a contemporary arts sector that's ambitious and fair.

Co-presented with the City of Melbourne