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Ken Kwapis opens his delightful and genuine documentary We are the Shaggs by having a group of people listen and react to a song by The Shaggs. It’s almost a challenge asking if the audience can stick with the film after hearing the odd music created by three teens sisters — Dorothy, Betty, and Helen Wiggin from the mid to late 1960s.

We Are The Shaggs screens at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 13 September 2...

In our second part of two interviews about the tender short film For the Boys, director Mitchell Withers and producer Sofia Viegas talk about their journey into filmmaking, creating a safe space for Mitch Brown to share his story as an openly bisexual footy player, and about Australian culture, plus much more.

This is an honest, open, considerate discussion, and I'm beyond grateful to both Mitchell and Sofia for sharing their storie...

In 2025, in an interview with Sam Koslowski of The Daily Aus, Mitch Brown became the first openly bisexual footy player in Australia. To give some perspective, the VFL was founded in 1896. That's 129 years since the V/AFL commenced that a current or former footy player felt safe enough to share their story.

Over the past year, Mitch has become an advocate for queer voices, speaking about his experiences with biphobia and raising awa...

Chouwa Liang's documentary Replica invites viewers to empathise with a world of Chinese women who are finding romance and relationships with AI partners or companions. When human-to-human relationships don't work, Qin, Sonya, and Muna, the women of Replica turn to AI boyfriends who woo and check in on their human partners throughout the day. Each receive romantic poems or pose for selfies with their digital boyfriends, creations wh...

Documentarian Selina Miles has crafted a filmography that gives space to women's voices and stories. From her debut feature, Martha: A Picture Story, which took us into the world of street art, to the stunning Harley & Katya which explored the relationship between figure skaters Harley Windsor and Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya, to her latest film, Silenced, which urges audiences to listen to the voices of women from around the worl...

At the dawn of his career, Tony Jones filmed Four Corners documentaries like Frozen Asset alongside producer Martin Butler. Now, for the first time in decades, Tony steps back into the world of documentary filmmaking with his animal advocacy film Sentient.

Sentient is not an easy film by any measure. It's complex, harrowing, and simply devastating to experience. That is, quite clearly, by design. After all, Tony is asking us to ...

James Hunter is no stranger to the Melbourne International Film Festival, having participated in the MIFF Accelerator Lab for his short film Nest (2021). He now returns to MIFF with his feature film debut The Latcher, which he directs, co-writes, and produces.

The Latcher follows Lucy Lovegrove's Alice, an out of work midwife haunted by her own personal loss and being plagued by waking nightmares that emerge from the remote land she...

The following conversation unpacks Melissa's work, while touching on what a future feature film from Melissa will look like. Melissa's work is available to view on her website MelissaAnastasi.com, and I encourage you to dive into the available shorts prior to listening to this interview. I also encourage you to check out her commissioned work too which features music videos with artists like Jane Tyrrell from Elefant Traks and comm...

Adam C. Briggs is a prolific voice in Australian cinema, with acclaimed films like A Grand Mockery, Boogie Bobby, and his new film, Phillip Philadelphia, arriving over the span of a few years. His films are the result of collaborations with equally vital voices in Australian cinema, whether it be with Sam Dixon who co-directs A Grand Mockery and features in Phillip Philadelphia, or with Sarah Moore, who he made the short film It Fl...

While Australian comedies are making their mark on the small screen, they've been moderately absent on a film level, with only a handful emerging over the years - Audrey, How to Please a Woman, Birthright, and now, James Robert Woods acidic comedy The Birthday Trip.

This distinct and brutally hilarious comedy follows a group of friends heading out to the prestigious, six-star Lothian Gate for a birthday weekend. Over the course of a...

Multi-hyphenate talent Laura Brogan Browne is the voice behind the powerful short film Allegedly, an impactful story about Clover (Bailey Spalding), a high school graduate who participates in an anonymous survey she's sent by her high school mentor and former teacher. What initially presents as an innocuous student-teacher relationship transforms into a predatory experience for Clover.

Allegedly is based on true events and stands as...

For regular readers of the Curb..., you'll no doubt be familiar with the admiration and respect that I have for Laneikka Denne and the cohort of filmmakers and storytellers they've worked with over their career. The pinnacle of that admiration came in 2024 with the short film Oi, directed by the equally great Sophie Serisier. That film sat comfortably at the top of my Best Australian Films of the year list, a statement that's been ...

Brandon Daley's $Positions has the makings of a cult classic. Nerve shredding at times, before hollowing you out with giddy laughter at others. It screens at Revelation Perth International Film Festival on 13 & 14 July 2026. Tickets are available via RevelationFilmFest.org.

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Alana Hunt is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores history through a forensic approach to research. Her work mines the history of Australia, often utilising archival material to navigate the violent, colonial past. 

In her 2023 work, Surveilling a Crime Scene, Hunt navigates the materialisation of non-Indigenous life on Miriwoong Country in the town of Kununurra. That exploration brings forth the often violent ter...

Vonne Patiag has been forging a path in film and TV as a writer, director, and actor on shows like Halal Gurls and The Unusual Suspects, and films like Here Out West, Too Many Ethnics, and his new short film Homo, which has its world premiere at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival on 10 July 2026.

As you'll hear in the following interview, I found the film utterly beautiful and sweet in the moment, but hours later, ...

Filmmaker Jess Londono's short film e-Mum is a slightly satirical, completely engaging exploration on motherhood in the age of AI. Emma lives a solitary life with no partner or kids, a point of contention between her estranged mum and her. As an intrusion on Emma's life, her mum delivers an android daughter for her to look after. In Emma's eyes, this AI creation is a mere tool, something that exists to do the tasks that she has no ...

Lint is the first feature film from Boorloo-Perth polymath David West. It's a hyper independent West Aussie film about Iris (Melissa Coci) and Susan (Courtney Swartz), colleagues who work at an environmentally friendly dry cleaning company who conspire to bring down their sleazy boss Vincent (Tom Camp). Along the way, they get distracted by dinners with friends, tennis lessons, and more, all the while their exploits are intersperse...

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West Aussie filmmaker Miley Tunnecliffe makes the shift from shorts to features with her debut feature length film Proclivitas. This familial horror-drama film features Clare (an impressive grounded performance from Rose Riley), an addict in recovery who returns to her hometown to tidy up her mother's house after her sudden death. Returning home, Clare connects with her old flame Jerry (a superb George Mason), and the two bond over...