Rodd Rathjen
Director, Buoyancy
Rodd Rathjen is a writer-director raised in central Victoria, Australia. Rathjen completed a Bachelor of Film and Television with Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts. He made short film The Stranger in 2011, but his breakthrough came with the 2013 short film Tau Seru in India about a young nomad in the Himalayas, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and Rathjen was nominated for the Discovery Award. The film screened at over 50 International festivals and received numerous awards including the AACTA for Best Short Film Award. He followed this with Sweat in 2015 starring Australian screen legend Colin Friels. In 2014 Rodd received the Directors Acclaim Fund from Screen Australia and participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus as a Director. Buoyancy is Rathjen’s feature film debut and his first APSA nomination for Best Youth Feature Film and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. It is also Australia’s entry to the upcoming 2020 Academy Awards.
Josephine Mackerras
Director, Alice
Josephine is a multi-award winning filmmaker who spent her childhood in Australia and China. Her first passion was acting, joining a theatre group at the age of 9. She left the southern hemisphere at 16, living in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, Montreal, London, Paris and New York where she studied film making at New York University. Her films have been accepted in over 130 film festivals worldwide, including Seattle, Slamdance, Chicago, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Brussels, and AFI.
Her first feature film Alice is presently doing the festival circuit and has won a string of awards including Spirit Award at Raindance, Best Narrative at Byron Bay and The Grand Jury Award at SXSW
Ryan Jasper Walsh
Director, Monks of the Sacred Valley
Ryan Jasper is a young documentary director and film practitioner, specialising in intimate non-fiction storytelling and aesthetic production craft. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he has worked under some of the most prestigious film directors in the Asia Pacific, including Wong Kar-Wai, Pietra Brettkelley & Lixin Fan to name a few, and had his work broadcast across Asia, Europe and Australasia. He is passionate about the world and utilising media as a means to educate, communicate and inspire positive change. A Thora local, Ryan will be moving from the Industry Connect audience to the main stage at SWIFF’20.
Sally Regan
Senior Manager, Sector Investment (Screen), Create NSW
New Incentives, Production Trends, Development Pathways & Funding Opportunities
The Senior Manager Sector Investment (Screen) leads and manages the team responsible for funding decisions in screen development and production. Sally has over 30 years’ experience working in the screen production sector. She has produced film and television in Australia, Europe, Asia and America and has, for the past five years, been a Drama Investment Manager at Screen Australia.
Sally’s producer credits include the multi-award winning theatrical feature documentary thriller Forbidden Lie$ and she also co-produced the international Russell Crowe-featured series The Colour Of War, and produced the ABC documentaries National Treasures, Korean ANZAC, Peter Berner’s Loaded Brush, Road To Tokyo and Nerves of Steel, amongst others.
Simon Foster
Writer and film critic
Simon has been a film reviewer and industry journalist for over two decades. From his beginnings in the home entertainment sector, he brought his industry knowledge to a number of roles at Village Roadshow, 20th Century Fox Video, Columbia Tristar Films and the trade bible, Variety.
He turned his skills to full-time film industry journalism, and has contributed to the publications Encore, Inside Film, Empire and The Big Issue as well as on-air reviews for the Fairfax Media radio network. He currently writes for SBS Film, hosts the 92.5 ABC-FM weekly review segment Foster’s Fishbowl Film Show and is the editor of his own film website, Screen-Space (http://screen-space.squarespace.com/).
SWIFF Industry Connect will be held from 3.30PM – 5.30PM, MON 20 JAN at Element Bar. Casual networking, food, and refreshments follow the presentations. All SWIFF Industry Connect attendees receive free admission to the new Australian feature film, Buoyancy, screening at 6.30pm, Jetty Memorial Theatre following the event.
Arts Mid North Coast is the region’s peak body for the development of arts and culture, including film and screen culture. For more information about filming your next production on the Mid North Coast, visit https://artsmidnorthcoast.com/
