Dr. Mark Ryan, publishing as Mark David Ryan, is an Associate Professor in screen and media industries and a Chief Investigator for the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC), Queensland University of Technology. He is an expert in screen industries research, Australian genre cinema, genre film studies, and digital media. He was the President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (SSAAAZ) between 2015 and 2018 and an Executive Member of Australian Screen Producers Education and Research Association (ASPERA) in 2015/2016. He is the co-editor of Australian Genre Film (with Kelly McWilliam, 2021, Routledge), Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and the Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect). Ryan is a Chief Investigator of two Australian Research Council Linkage projects: Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019-2023) and Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (2017-2020).
Catherine Fowler is Associate Professor in Film at Otago University. Her research interests include feminism and film, art and film, European cinema and the audio-visual essay. She is author of a book on Sally Potter a co-edited collection (with Gillian Helfield) on the rural in cinema and editor of ‘The European Cinema Reader’. Her research on artists’ moving images has been published in Cinema Journal, Framework, MIRAJ, Art Journal and Screen.
Constantine Verevis is Associate Professor in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. He is author of Film Remakes (2006) and Flaming Creatures (2020), and co-author of Australian Film Theory and Criticism (2013). His co-edited volumes include: Second Takes (2010), Film Trilogies (2012), Transnational Television Remakes (2016), Transnational Film Remakes (2017) and Film Reboots (2020). With Claire Perkins, he is editor of Screen Serialities for Edinburgh UP.
Dr Alfio Leotta is a Senior Lecturer in Film at Victoria University of Wellington. His primary research interests focus on the relation between film and tourism, New Zealand cinema, Italian cinema and the globalization of film production. He is the author of Touring the Screen: Tourism and New Zealand Film Geographies (Intellect, 2011) and Peter Jackson (Bloomsbury, 2016).
Phoebe Macrossan is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of the Arts & Media at UNSW. She is also a sessional academic at the Faculty of Creative Industries at QUT. Phoebe is a co-founder of the Sydney Screen Studies Network (SSSN) and the Postgraduate Executive Member for SSAAANZ. Her research interests are musical film and television, popular music performance, and celebrity studies. She has published a journal article on the Beatles' jukebox musical Across the Universe in Screening the Past and a book chapter on Beyoncé in Popular Music, Stars and Stardom.
Kayleigh Murphy is a sessional academic based in Brisbane, teaching within the Creative Industries schools at QUT, JMC and Griffith Film School. She completed her PhD in 2015, examining the transnational appeal and implementation of the zombie genre within the Japanese film industry. Her research interests are in transnational film, genre cinema and the horror and zombie genres. Her publications include an article on the intersection of Japanese zombie films and cult cinema in the Asian Cinema journal and a co-authored chapter on the genre conventions of the Japanese zombie film in the book The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to 21st Century Chic.
Dr Jodi Brooks is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the School of the Arts & Media at the University of New South Wales (Sydney). She has published on film theory, feminist film theory, and television studies. She is a member of the Film Advisory Panel for the Sydney International Film Festival and the Vice-President (Australia) for the Screen Studies Association of Australian and New Zealand (SSAAANZ).
Allison Craven is Associate Professor of Screen Studies and English at James Cook University, North Queensland, Australia. Her screen research is in fairy tale and gothic narrative; Disney media; and Australian film and cinema. She is author of Fairy Tale Interrupted: Feminism, Masculinity, Wonder Cinema (2017), and Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema: Poetics and Screen Geographies (2016).
Dr Joyleen Christensen lectures in Film and Literature at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Joyleen researches popular culture – with an emphasis on celebrity and fan cultures in film, television, and music. She has a special interest in the production and consumption of contemporary celebrity and was the 2015 Visiting Scholar with the University of British Colombia’s Centre for Cinema Studies.
Catherine Gough-Brady produced and directed six ABCTV documentary series aimed the youth market. These include Legal Briefs (2016) and the award-winning Ethics Matters (2017). Her TV work has been funded by various organisations, including Film Victoria and Seoul Film Commission. Catherine also created 11 audio features for ABC Radio National. Her audio work has been funded by the Australia Council.
Dr Kim Wilkins is a sessional academic in film and literature at the University of Sydney. She is the author of American Eccentric Cinema, and has published articles in Film Criticism, The New Review of Film and Television Studies, Sydney Studies in English, Texas Studies in Literature and Languages, and chapters in edited collections on Wes Anderson and HBO’s Westworld.
John Hughes’ creative practice engages political and cultural activism and histories. Adjunct Professor, RMIT University; Honorary Fellow, School of Film and Television, University of Melbourne; Research Associate, University of Canberra. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, The Films of John Hughes: a history of independent screen production in Australia (Cumming, 2014) is published by ATOM. Website: www.earlyworks.com.au
Arezou Zalipour (PhD, Waikato; PhD, UKM) is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. Her research and creative practice focus on the intersection of screen production and audiences, sociocultural diversity, migration, and diaspora with secondary research in the philosophy of imagination and creativity. Her recent project offered a theoretical study of the production practices of diasporic filmmakers in New Zealand with the first conceptualisation of “Asian New Zealand cinema”. Her forthcoming book is entitled: Migrant and Diasporic Film and Filmmaking in New Zealand.
Luke Robinson is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of the Arts & Media at UNSW. He is also the treasurer of the Sydney Screen Studies Network (SSSN) and a video artist working with Move in Pictures. Luke’s research interests are classic Hollywood film, issues and theories of visibility and invisibility, approaches to film materiality, and theories of film sound
Peter C. Pugsley is Associate Professor in Media at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of Exploring Morality and Sexuality in Asian Cinema (2015, Routledge) and Tradition,Culture and Aesthetics in Contemporary Asian Cinema (2013, Routledge). He has published on the cinemas of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and India, and on television in Singapore and China.
Max Bledstein is a PhD student and tutor in Film Studies at the University of New South Wales. His work has appeared in Iranian Studies, Overland, Inks, The New Americanist, and Jeunesse. He has taught courses in contemporary literature, visual media, and composition at the University of Winnipeg and Brandon University. His thesis examines appropriations from Western genre films in contemporary Iranian cinema. He won the 2021 Best Graduate Student Essay awards from the Horror Studies and Transnational Cinemas Scholarly Interest Groups, both of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Dr Kelly McWilliam is an Associate Professor at the University of Southern Queensland and Past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia. She holds degrees in film and media, literature, and psychology. Her research focuses on screen media with emphases in Australian, queer, and genre cinemas, as well as screen media impact more broadly. Kelly’s most recent books are Australian Genre Film (with Mark David Ryan, Routledge, 2021) and Ana Kokkinos: An Oeuvre of Outsiders (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). Her previous books include Screen Media: Analysing Film and Television (with Jane Stadler, Allen and Unwin, 2009) and co-editing Story Circle: Digital Storytelling around the World (with John Hartley, Blackwell, 2009). She has completed two ARC Linkage Projects and is currently developing new projects on Australian screen industries. Her Twitter handle is @DrKellyMcW
Megan Carrigy is Associate Director for Academic Programs at NYU Sydney. Before joining NYU, she was the Education Projects Manager at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She is the author of The Reenactment in Contemporary Screen Culture (Bloomsbury 2021). Her research interests include national, transnational and First Nations cinema, film theory, virtual reality, remakes, genre and spectatorship. She is also a former programmer for the Mardi Gras Film Festivals where she built partnerships with local and international distributors, filmmakers, festivals and community organisations.
A graduate of UTS, Australia with a Master of Creative Arts (documentary and VR) Renée is a storyteller, journalist, writer and screen professional with 20+ years experience in film TV, print and digital. She has written, produced and directed short films; scripted and directed plays produced in the world’s largest play festival, Short+Sweet; pioneered research into a scripting template for immersive content (VR, CVR, 360) originated by filmmaker Elia Petridis of Fever Content, LA and scripted the award-winning short film Red Handed which has screened in multiple international film festivals.
She has a development slate of female-centric stories for screen as well as a feature documentary in post Ticketyboo: a Secret in Plain Sight about innovative, artistic, compassionate design to help people engage with dementia. She gives back to the filmmaking community by nurturing the next wave of screen professionals as an EP and creative consultant on a wide range of award-winning films, documentary and web series, overseeing production from concept to transmission.
Lisa French is Dean of RMIT University’s School of Media and Communication and Professor of Screen and Media. She has published extensively on women in film, produced documentaries, is Co-chair of a UNESCO 19 global university research network on media, gender and ICTs, and is a member of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Taskforce. Her most recent book is The Female Gaze in Documentary Film – an International Perspective (2021).
In his research work, Dr Vétu focuses on the zombie characters featured in Japanese cinema and more generally the rhizomatic relations of popular culture with the society whence it came (PhD title: 'Beyond the Tree of the Living-dead: a Rhizoanalysis of Japanese Cinematic Zombies', 2021). He teaches a variety of courses with the Media Department at the University of Adelaide (incl. Media Policy Media Law, Exploring TV & Radio, Researching Media, Digital Storytelling). He is also the President of the French Radio Association of South Australia Inc, broadcasting on community radio in Adelaide, and serves on the board of SACBA (South Australian Community Broadcasters Association).
Claudia Sandberg is a filmmaker and film scholar. A Senior Research and Teaching Fellow at the University of Melbourne, her research focuses on German and Latin American film, European-Latin American cinematic relations, Cold War memory and film archives. She made Películas escondidas. Un viaje entre el exilio y la memoria (2016) in collaboration with Alejandro Areal Vélez, a documentary that examines DEFA ‘Chile’ films as part of the audio-visual documentation of the Pinochet dictatorship. Sandberg is author of Peter Lilienthal. A Cinema of Exile and Resistance (Berghahn Books, 2021). She co-edited the volume Contemporary Latin American Cinema. Resisting Neoliberalism? (2018) together with Carolina Rocha, and The German Cinema Book (2nd edition, 2020) together with Tim Bergfelder, Erica Carter and Deniz Göktürk. Her work also appears in Screenworks, Filmblatt, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, and Studies in Eastern European Cinema.
Susan Potter is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies in the University of Sydney’s Department of Art History. Her research concerns the intertwined histories of cinema and sexuality, including the relation of film as modern mass medium to the intensification of sexuality since the late nineteenth century, and the aesthetics and ethics of sexual representation in contemporary film. Her work has been published in Framework, Screen and Camera Obscura. Her monograph, Queer Timing: The Emergence of Lesbian Sexuality in Early Cinema (University of Illinois Press, 2019), was awarded the 2020 John Leo and Dana Heller Award for Best Single Work, Anthology, Multi-authored or Edited Book in LGBTQ Studies, Popular Culture Association.
Dr. Dave Hare is a sessional academic in film and media at Macquarie University (Sydney) and Duke Kunshan University (Jiangsu, China). His research interests include the conditions of digital screen technology uptake, screen industry policy and co-production treaties, and virtual reality documentary filmmaking in China.
Chris Comerford is Lecturer of Communications and Media in the School of the Arts, English and Media at the University of Wollongong. His research primarily investigates screen studies of all stripes, including film, television, video games and social media, and the ways we aesthetically and productively engage with them. He is currently authoring a book on cinematic television (Routledge, 2023).
Before Dafydd joined Auckland University of Technology as Associate Professor in the School of Communications in 2018, he was Lecturer in Media Production Cultures at Aberystwyth University’s TFTS department, and Director of Postgraduate Studies in the Arts Faculty of Aberystwyth. Dafydd publishes in both ‘traditional’ scholarly mode (on history in the media, minority language media, documentary culture) and in ‘screen practice as research’ mode, making installations and films that have been screened in several countries and at major international festivals. Dafydd is co-editor of Peter Lang's Documentary Film Cultures book series, and is on the editorial board of Media History (Taylor & Francis), and The International Journal of Creative Media Research (Bath Spa University). He is a member of the International Association for Minority Language Media Research(IAMLMR). Previously, Dafydd worked in the media industry in the UK in a number of sectors and roles, including producing, directing, and researching documentary, drama-documentary, interactive, commercials and corporate for local, network and digital channels.
Amy Boyle is a sessional academic, PhD Candidate (University of Wollongong) and research assistant for the Program in Gender-Based Violence (University of Newcastle). Amy’s research explores the representation of women, and the circulation of heteropatriarchies and feminisms through western popular culture. Her dissertation will examine how the movement from the broadcast network to the subscription television environment has cultivated a feminist niche audience and a new demand for women-centric, more explicitly feminist content. Amy has published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture.