Cinema Australia

Episode #127 | Benjamin Bryan

Welcome to the very first episode of the Cinema Australia Podcast for 2026! It’s great to be back. It wasn’t until the back end of 2025 that I realised how few episodes of this Podcast I recorded last year with a focus on more written interviews. I’m going to make it a priority in 2026 to record more episodes and hopefully reach my 150th episode which would be very exciting. On to this episode… I usually stick to interviewing directors and actors, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to guest cinematographer Benjamin Bryan - someone whose career I’ve kept a close eye on since first taking notice of his work on documentary, Franklin in 2022. Few cinematographers working in Australia are shooting films like Benjamin, and his work in his latest film, Iron Winter, is nothing short of breathtaking. Iron Winter observes two friends from Mongolia’s remote Tsakhir (Saak-ear) Valley, as they undertake a grueling rite of passage, herding 2,000 horses across the icy Mongolian steppe in search of grazing land below the snow. This tradition has been under threat in recent times due to harsh weather conditions made worse by climate change and the effects of urbanisation on the local community.  Benjamin’s other films include Glenn Triggs’ Ancestry Road and Sue Thomson’s Careless which we also discuss here along with his directing work on his new series pilot, Lake Boga. Anyway… enjoy.

Episode #126 | Dawn Jackson & Davo Hardy

This episode is a little different from usual, as it features two interviews originally recorded for my radio segment on 2RRR and the Community Radio Network. I thought I’d also publish them here for your listening pleasure. My first guest here is Dawn Jackson, a filmmaker from Perth whose new documentary Pointe: Dancing on a Knife’s Edge is currently touring Australia with a series of Q&A screenings. Pointe: Dancing on a Knife’s Edge is a captivating and moving documentary about Australian dancer Floeur Alder, daughter of ballet luminaries Lucette Aldous AC and Alan Alder. At 22, just as she was about to embark on her European dance career, she survived a brutal stabbing by a stranger outside her home. While the physical wounds healed, the trauma stirred turbulent memories from her past, sparking a deeply personal quest to find her place in the dance world. Dawn Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker and dancer passionate about social change through storytelling. Since completing her Master’s at the WA Screen Academy, specialising in directing, Dawn has been developing the feature documentary Pointe: Dancing on a Knife’s Edge, which recently won the inaugural Brian Beaton Award. She is also developing Caves House – Place of Love, an innovative social history documentary project, and Hush, a new dance/film work born out of an arts residency in the Arctic Circle. Dawn’s previous work includes the men’s mental health drama Fathom, which she directed and produced in 2017. —— If you’ve been following Cinema Australia for a while now, you’ll know that my next guest needs no introduction. Davo has released a new feature film almost every second year since his debut, The Lives We Lead, in 2015. Since then, Davo’s filmography has included Hunting for Shadows, A Silent Agreement, The Blood of God, Public Eye, and The Switchblade Sisterhood. Davo’s latest film, Mothers, Lovers and Others, follows the interweaving private lives and family dramas of several people who cross paths at an orgy. Davo certainly has a signature style, and as I tell him in this interview, there’s no one else like him making movies in Australia today. Anyway… enjoy.

Episode #125 | Peter Skinner

In this episode, I’m joined by the great Peter Skinner to discuss his debut feature film, Two Ugly People. There’s not much point in me gushing here about how much I love this film, because I do enough of that throughout this interview. But I will say that it’s only August, and Two Ugly People is already not only one of my favourite Australian films this year, but one of my favourite films of the year in general. Two Ugly People follows two strangers (Michael Sheasby and Cato Ayyar IR) who meet by chance in a highway-side motel, but as their stay goes on, we begin to wonder if their meeting was by chance at all. What follows is truly hypnotic filmmaking from Skinner. Peter Skinner is an Academy Award-qualifying, St Kilda Best Film-winning, and Australian Directors Guild-nominated filmmaker. Beginning as a sculptor with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours), he later earned a Master of Film Studies from the University of Sydney and a Master’s in Directing from AFTRS. His work blends visual arts with narrative storytelling, earning critical acclaim. As co-founder of Seymour Pictures, he wrote, directed, produced, and edited his debut feature Two Ugly People, shortlisted for the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Growing up in working-class Sydney, his films explore love, identity, and the beauty within everyday lives. Anyway… enjoy.

Episode #124 | Adrian Ortega

In this episode, I’m joined by writer, director and producer Adrian Ortega to discuss the making of his new film, Westgate - a poetic exploration of family, culture, and the weight of past traumas. Set in 1999 in the shadows of the Westgate bridge collapse, Westgate follows single mother Netta (played by Sarah Nicolazzo) and her son Julian (played by Max Nappo). With her debts mounting, and the threat on eviction, Netta has only 24 hours to turn things around while also attending to her son’s unstable health conditions. Adrian Ortega is a Melbourne-based filmmaker whose debut feature Cerulean Blue premiered to sold-out audiences at the 68th Melbourne International Film Festival in 2019, winning the El Rey Award for Excellence in Film Directing at the Barcelona International Film Festival. Streaming on Stanin Australia, the film marked a high point in a career spanning acclaimed documentaries, festival-selected shorts, and productions under his company Proud Wing Films, championing fresh voices in Australian cinema. Anyway… enjoy.

Episode #123 | Michael O'Halloran and Adam Harmer

Over a decade in the making, the fully independent science fiction feature film Space/Time is now available via VoD release after a successful but limited cinema run around the country. In this episode, I’m joined by the film’s director and co-writer, Michael O’Halloran, and co-writer Adam Harmer to discuss the making of the film in detail. Here’s the official synopsis for the film: When a team of scientists developing an engine for interstellar travel see their funding cut after a fatal disaster, they resort to criminal activity to finance and rebuild their device. Space/Time stars Ashlee Lollback, Hugh Parker and Pacharo Mzembe. Michael is an award-winning filmmaker whose passion for cinema began early. A QUT graduate, he’s directed acclaimed short films and high-profile commercials. Adam is known for his writing and producing work on short films including The Dossier Case and Break the Rock. Anyway… enjoy.