Date: Thursday Nov 16

Time: 6-9pm

Location: RMIT, Melbourne | Building 80 Cinema [level 1 room 2]

Followed by drinks and networking at The Oxford Scholar (Located next to Building 80)

Be very, very afraid... of missing this one! 

Unless you're living under a rock you know horror is having a major moment! Check out The Monthly Article and The Age Article if you don't believe us. We tried to warn you......

Along with our presenting partner WIFT Vic, we're getting chills just thinking about the confirmed panelists for this hot event:

Late Night With The Devil

Colin Cairns (Director, Writer, Editor)

Cameron Cairns (Director, Writer, Editor)

Colin and Cameron Cairnes' debut feature, 100 BLOODY ACRES won the Midnight X-treme award at Sitges Film Festival and was hailed by rogerebert.com as "the best low-budget horror-comedy since Shaun of the Dead". Their follow-up, SCARE CAMPAIGN (2016) was a gruesomely inventive take on the “slasher". The brothers’ latest genre-bending offering is LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL - a nightmarishly entertaining ode to the talk shows (and horror movies) of the 70s. The film had its world premiere at this year’s SXSW, with horror legend Stephen King tweeting, “It’s absolutely brilliant. I couldn't take my eyes off it.”

Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism

Nick Kozakis (Director)

Lauren Simpson (Producer)

Nick Kozakis

Nick Kozakis, director and editor at Visible Studios, is a 3x ARIA nominated and ADG nominated director, helming projects with some of Australia's most talented creatives, including the 2 Billion viewed ‘Dance Monkey’ music video with the Australian superstar Tones & I. Most recently, Nick has directed ‘Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism’, which was acquired by XYZ Films and has been released as one of Australia’s first-ever Tubi Originals in North America. ‘Godless’ has also been acquired for distribution in AUNZ by Umbrella Entertainment and has been enjoying a prestigious festival run and celebrated its World Premiere at the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, its Spanish Premiere at the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, and was voted Top 3 in the Audience Awards after its Australian Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2023. His feature film debut Plague was picked up by New York sales agents Screen Media, and subsequently distributed throughout North America. Plague was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and was sold internationally. The film was nominated for and won multiple awards. Plague ranked number one for 12 consecutive weeks on the iTunes Horror charts, overtaking Oren Peli's (Paranormal Activity) Area 51.

Lauren Simpson 

Lauren's film story started with a specialist film study at California State University Long Beach. She backed that up with a Bachelor of Film and Television from Swinburne University and an MBA from the Australian Institute of Business. Her career has been varied and rewarding, working with Filmlnk Movie Magazine, Event Cinemas, and as an accomplished Service Producer produced high-level commercial and narrative content for companies all over the world. Today she's the founder of Iris Arc Pictures - where she produced the independent feature film 'Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism' which was picked up by XYZ Films and Umbrella Entertainment and subsequently released as a Tubi Original. ‘Godless’ has been enjoying a prestigious festival run and celebrated premieres at the Overlook Film Festival, Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival and was voted Top 3 in the Audience Awards at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2023. The work Lauren is doing to advocate for gender equality and diversity in the film industry is just as significant. As the President of Women in Film & Television Victoria (WIFT Vic) she enjoys finding new ways forward for women and women-identifying people across the screen industries, proudly advocating for representation on and off the screen.

Umbrella Entertainment

Hudson Sowada (Fantastic Film Festival Australia Artistic Director, National Sales Manager)

Hudson Sowada is the artistic director and lead programmer at Fantastic Film Festival Australia. An event that examines the cross-section of cult, genre, and art house cinema. With a keen eye for subversive and thought-provoking cinema, the event is a celebration of ground-breaking work from new cinematic perspectives. Hudson is also the National Sales manager at Umbrella Entertainment a leading film distribution company that specializes in signature-driven local and intentional independent cinema.

Donna McRae

Independent filmmaker

Australian filmmaker Donna McRae works across colour, black & white, long takes, and multi-channel video with exceptional fluency. Her particular interrogations of ghosts, 19th-century gender roles, and post-punk rock‘n’roll offer a surprising and powerful potential. A VCA graduate, her Ph.D. film, JOHNNY GHOST (2012), won seven awards and two Special Jury Prizes. It was just voted #13 in the ‘Top 15 Australian Horror Movies...sorted’ in The Guardian. She makes music videos with visual artist Michael Vale.

Her supernatural microbudget feature LOST GULLY ROAD (2017), has worldwide distribution, won Best Feature at three International Film Festivals, is sold to TV, and was nominated for Best Direction in a Feature at the Australian Directors Guild Awards. Her microbudget animal rights documentary Cobby: The Other Side of Cute (2018) was sold to Foxtel. She is developing The Mysterious Miss Ada, a ‘ghost’ western; DAWN, a psycho biddy horror feature, (with Screen Australia development support),  PRESERVATION, a 1/2 hour limited TV series where post-punk, ghosts and 19th-century gender roles all come together, and an untitled children's ghost story.  She lectures at Deakin University and regularly writes about horror films. She is on the DAMECHANGER committee and on the advisory board for the Hidden Horror Histories series with Liverpool University Press.

*****

$30 WIFT members / MMA alumni 

$40 early bird tickets 

$50 regular tickets (from Nov 1) 

We understand that investing in your career can be challenging when money is tight so we are offering ONE FREE SPOT to a screen practitioner who is experiencing financial hardship. Apply here for a chance to secure your place.