Australian Film Critics Association - About Us

Adrian Danks is Senior Lecturer and Head of Cinema Studies and the Media Program in the School of Applied Communication, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (University). He is co-curator of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, and editor of Cteq: Annotations on Film, published in Senses of Cinema. He has published widely in a range of books and journals including: Senses of Cinema, Metro, Screening the Past, Real-Time, Screen Education, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Traditions in World Cinema, Melbourne in the 60s, 24 Frames: Australia and New Zealand, Cultural Seeds and Twin Peeks: Australian and New Zealand Feature Films. He is writing a book on the history and practice of home moviemaking in Australia..

Adrian Martin is Senior Research Fellow in Film and Television Studies, Monash University. He has combined work as a professional writer and film critic with a university career since 1979. He was film reviewer for The Age between 1995 and 2006. He has won the Byron Kennedy Award (Australian Film Institute) and the Pascall Prize for Critical Writing, and his PhD on film style won the Mollie Holman Award. He is the author of four books and hundreds of essays on film, art, television, literature, music, popular and avant-garde culture.

Bernard Hemingway’s earliest film memories are of swashbucklers, musicals and sword-and-sandal epics. In the 1970s he discovered auteur cinema before the Golden Age of Easy Riders and Raging Bulls swept him off his feet. Then came the likes of Tarkovsky, Fellini, Kurosawa, Buñuel and Bergman and the abandonment of the real and present world was complete. The musical remains his favourite genre. You can read more about his views on film here.

Bruce Paterson studied a little film to stay sane during a law degree, wrote reviews, got out of the critic's armchair briefly in the 1990s to enter a few Super 8 film competitions (and win one), and is now comfortably ensconsed for an exciting new millennium of film. He was Treasurer of AFCA in 2006/07 and Secretary in 2007/08. Tune into his reviews at Cinephilia.

Carol Von Opstal writes for Screenthemes, and presents a weekly screen media music, news and information programme on 3MBSfm. In addition to reviewing films, she enjoys interviewing filmmakers, soundtrack composers and actors, as well as hosting post-screening Q&A sessions with filmmakers. While she is passionate about a number of Directors and film genres, her areas of specialisation are in psychology and film, screen media, perception and culture, film noir, and film music. She also actively encourages - and engages in - discourse about the Australian film industry.

Cerise Howard enjoys a longtime affiliation with Senses of Cinema, for whom she nowadays mostly writes film festival reports from far-flung locales. She is Screening the Past's "Online Editor", can be heard talking film fortnightly on 102.7 3RRR-FM's "Smartarts" program and has collaborated, in all manner of administrative, curatorial and journalistic capacities, with a wide variety of film festivals here and abroad.

Cynthia Karena is a film and TV researcher and writer on film. She writes for Metro magazine, mainly in-depth interviews with directors, writers and actors. In the late '90's she co-hosted 3CR's Film Show and gave film reviews on 3CR Breakfast Program, where she also covered the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Her love of film began when watching midnight movies as a child.

Dave Griffiths has worked as a film reviewer/journalist for over fifteen years now. He begun his career with Gippsland - based newspaper The Banner before turning his hand to both radio and television. Currently Dave's reviews and articles can be seen at www.subcultureentertainment.com, on the Media Search website and in The Buzz entertainment magazine (where Dave is Head Film Writer). Dave is also a film and tv screenwriter, producer and director.

David Michael Brown is a British ex-pat living in Sydney, Australia. He works as a freelance writer contributing to such publications as Film Review, Filmink, Shivers, Smoke and Mirrors, Drum Media, Cinema Retro, Starburst and Cinephilia. He is presently researching a book on director and Andy Warhol associate Paul Morrissey and is a producer on Sydney radio station Eastside FM's Cinemascape show. He has just hosted his first DVD running commentary for the forthcoming Australian horror film I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer.

David O'Connell has been writing reviews of both old and new films for his own website Screen Fanatic (www.screenfanatic.com) since early 2008, as well contributing to In Film Australia (www.infilm.com.au). He also occasionally reviews films for 20/20 Filmsight (www.moviecritic.com.au) and MediaSearch (www.mediasearch.com.au). His favourite directors include Sidney Lumet, Ingmar Bergman, Brian DePalma, David Cronenberg, Patrice Leconte, David Fincher and Francois Ozon.

Deb Verhoeven is Research Coordinator in RMIT's School of Applied Communication and manager of the Australian Film Institute Research Collection. Deb is experienced in screen culture as a festival and conference director, and has consulted to Australian and international cultural bodies on aspects of film industry policy. Deb has have served on the boards of various industry organizations including the AFI and the journal Senses of Cinema. Deb has also been a member of several festival juries and between 2000 and 2002 was CEO of the AFI.

Emma Flanagan loves a good story well told, and her film-going started with regular Saturday afternoons at ‘the flicks’ at the Metro Picture Theatre in Melbourne. Emma has been a regular reviewer and interviewer of film industry practitioners for several years. Her articles have been published both on-line, including the AFCA website, as well as in various print media. Her lengthy interview with Clayton Jacobson and Rohan Timlock on the production of “Kenny” was published in Metro Magazine in 2007. She has recently joined the review team at Cinephilia.

Greg King has had a life long love of films. He has been reviewing popular films for over 15 years. Since 1994, he has been the film reviewer for BEAT magazine. His reviews have also appeared in the Herald Sun newspaper, S-Press, Stage Whispers, and a number of magazines, newspapers and web sites, notably Filmreviews.
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Jake Wilson is a freelance writer who reviews films regularly for The Age. He has contributed to various print and online publications including RealTime, Australian Book Review and Urban Cinefile, and for two years was co-editor of Senses of Cinema.

Jenni Klaus was born and raised in Texas, but now calls Tasmania home. She has been reviewing films for the radio (national and local), internet and print since 2002. You can find her at her website, www.jenreviewsmovies.com, and www.twitter.com/jenmovies. Her podcast, All Star Cast, is available on iTunes.

Jonathan Dawson is a film writer/director and broadcaster who has worked on Australian television series, documentaries and corporate videos. He has published widely on film, cultural theory and policy, architecture and design. He presented the ABC TV film show Cuts. Since 1972 he has been a film reviewer for ABC Metro stations. He was appointed as the first Chair of Film Queensland, and is on the Brisbane International Animation Festival Board. He’s a major essayist for the award winning Encyclopedia of Documentary Film and writes for Senses of Cinema, the Hobart Mercury and a popular culture column.

Julian Lewis is Melbourne-based film critic for Rhythms Magazine and is also a regular freelance contributor to major newspapers around Australia on subjects ranging from film to popular culture, history and general trivia. He has been a guest film critic on ABC Radio and written quiz questions for commercial television.

Lesley Chow is a Melbourne film and arts writer. Her articles have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Bright Lights, Senses of Cinema, and other publications.

Matthew Myers was a regular movie reviewer for the Fairfax Community Newspapers for 10 years. He now writes for DNA magazine, providing monthly interviews and feature articles. The pdf files below open in new windows, please click the reload/refresh button in your brower if an error occurs.

Mike Clode was born in New South Wales, lived for 30 years in South Africa, before returning to Australia and travelling extensively here and abroad. He is a volunteer teacher of English as a second language, liaison officer for a housing cooperative, and lives and breathes film for 3WBC radio.

Peter Krausz is Chair of AFCA, and presents Media Moves Cinema Scene on 3CR. Peter has contributed to Metro, Australian Screen Education, Independent Education, and 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema. He is also a consultant to film festivals and services.

Peter Malone is a regular contributor to Signis.

Richard Watts is the host of 3RRR FM's flagship arts program, SmartArts; the Arts Editor of www.artshub.com.au and a regular contributor to www.citysearch.com.au. His writings have also been published in broadsheets, journals, anthologies and magazines in Australia and overseas.

Rochelle Siemienowicz is editor at the Australian Film Institute and film editor at the Big Issue magazine.

Simon Miraudo is the resident film reviewer and blogger for Australia's leading online movie rental company, Quickflix. Based in Perth, Simon engages in regular film debates with his national readership and is passionate about critical literacy. He recently completed a dissertation on the theory of revenge in Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy.

Stephen Rowley writes the website Cinephobia. His writing has appeared in The Age, Animation
Journal, Senses of Cinema, In Film Australia, and in the anthology The Blade Runner Experience (Will Brooker (ed), 2006, Wallflower Press). An urban planner, he is also co-editor of the magazine Planning News.

Tara Judah is a freelance writer who authors Liminal Vision and contributes to In Film Australia and The Big Issue..

Thomas Caldwell writes the website Cinema Autopsy and is the author of Film Analysis Handbook. He also regularly reviews for The Big Issue and is the co-host of “The Casting Couch” on JOY 94.9.

Donna Demaio joined 3AW in 1992. As a senior journalist, newsreader and editor, Donna covers major events including the Spring Racing Carnival, the Formula One Grand Prix, the Australian Open Tennis, the Logies, the AFI's and the International Comedy Festival. As 3AW's Arts and Entertainment reporter, Donna has interviewed a plethora of celebrities, stars and actors including Harrison Ford, Heath Ledger, Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Anthony Warlow, John Cleese and Hugh Jackman. ]Donna is often out and about reporting for news and programs and has a weekly spot on Afternoons. Her interests cover fashion, film, television, theatre, comedy, music and all things entertainment and the arts. A 2009 highlight is attending the Venice Film Festival as a member of the FIPRESCI ( international critics) jury. Ozon.

Sharon Hurst writes for www.cinephilia.net.au and updates 3CR listeners on film for the Brekky Show, every second Friday. Her love of film developed very young with parents taking her such films as Lawrence of Arabia and A Man and a Woman.