Staff

Editorial

Managing Editor

Nace Zavrl

Nace Zavrl is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, working on issues in non-fiction filmmaking, globalization, and historiography. He has published in Senses of CinemaAfterimageEkran, and the Moving Image Review and Art Journal. At the moment, he is writing his dissertation on political documentary in the territories of former Yugoslavia.

Editors

César Albarrán-Torres

César Albarrán-Torres had two favourite films growing up: Cronenberg’s The Fly and Lynch’s The Elephant Man. He is lecturer in Media and Communication at Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne), where he teaches Popular Culture of Asia and Global Screen Studies. He has been widely published in academic and non-academic titles as a film and literary critic, author and translator. He is the former editor of Cine PREMIERE magazine (Mexico) and the founding editor of Cine PREMIERE, the most widely read film website in the Spanish-speaking world. He researches on film, social media, television, politics and, weirdly, gambling. His book Digital Gambling: Theorizing Gamble-Play Media will be published by Routledge in May 2018.

Tara Judah

Tara Judah is a film critic and improviser, with over ten years of experience working in the film exhibition sector. She has a passion for performative inquiry, creative reflection, and critical intervention. Tara is a trustee on the board of directors at Curzon Cinema & Arts in Clevedon, UK.

Abel Muñoz-Hénonin 

Abel Muñoz-Hénonin teaches Film History at Escuela Superior de Cine and Latin American Cinema at Universidad Iberoamericana. Previously, he was the chief curator at his country’s national film archive, Cineteca Nacional, where he founded the Mexican film/moving images magazine Icónica.

Fiona Villella

Fiona Villella is a Melbourne-based writer and teacher. She’s written for The Big Issue (Australia), ScreenHub and The Age and writes study guides for ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media). She is one of the founders of Senses of Cinema, and was heavily involved in its early days as editor and manager. Her favourite directors include Sally Potter, Chantal Akerman, Claire Denis, Alfred Hitchcock and Robert Bresson.

CTEQ Editors

Alex Williams

Alex Williams is a PhD candidate in Screen and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne, where their research focuses on pain and the body in contemporary art cinema. They are a member of the senior ticketing team at ACMI and a committee member of the Melbourne Cinémathèque.

Social Media

Ruth Richards

Ruth Richards is an early career research whose PhD explored intersections of feminism and animation. She currently teaches at RMIT University in cinema studies, popular culture and television studies courses.

Website Administrator

Jacob Agius

Jacob Agius is a film composer and sound designer. They are a co-programmer and committee member for the Melbourne Cinémathèque and the Czech & Slovak Film Festival of Australia.

Committee

Amanda Barbour (President)

Amanda Barbour is an award winning film critic and former media advisor in the Australian federal parliament.

Duncan Caillard (Vice-President)

Duncan Caillard is a screen studies researcher and film programmer based in Melbourne, Australia. His doctoral thesis analysed the screen works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and his current research investigates transnational art cinema in Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific focussing, on the intersection of film aesthetics and political activism.

Jane Carracher (Treasurer)

Jane is currently Finance and Membership manager at the Australian Film Institute | Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. Jane joined the AFI in early 2006 as Finance Assistant and has since progressed her role to manage both finance and membership for AFI | AACTA, and is its longest-serving employee. Jane has a Bachelor of Business (Electronic Commerce) and has always had a keen interest in all things film.

Djoymi Baker (Secretary)

Djoymi Baker is a film scholar and Lecturer in Cinema Studies at RMIT University. With a background in television, she writes on topics such as streaming, genre studies, fandom and myth in popular culture. Djoymi is the author of To Boldly Go: Marketing the Myth of Star Trek (I.B. Tauris 2018) and the co-author of The Encyclopedia of Epic Films (Rowman & Littlefield 2014).

Reece Goodwin

Reece Goodwin is a Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. His area of focus includes film, TV and special cinema experiences including live performances accompanying films.

Alexia Kannas

Alexia Kannas is Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, where she teaches courses in Cinema Studies. Her research interests include cult and alternative cinemas, cinematic modernism, cross-cultural reception,and music and sound in film and television. She is the author of Deep Red (Columbia University Press/Wallflower, 2017) and GIALLO!: Genre, Modernity and Detection in Italian Horror Cinema (SUNY, forthcoming 2020). In 2017 she was the recipient (with Dr Stephen Gaunson) of a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning at the Australian Awards for University Teaching. Alexia is co-director of the Screen & Sound Cultures Research Group at RMIT.

Kristy Matheson

Kristy Matheson is the Creative Director of Edinburgh International Film Festival. She is the former Director of Film at ACMI, a member of Screen Australia’s Gender Matters Taskforce and a recipient of the 2017 Natalie Miller Fellowship.

Stuart Richards

Stuart Richards is Lecturer in Screen Studies at the University of South Australia. His research lies at the intersection of Australian film and television, screen-based creative industries, and queer screen media. His monograph, The Queer Film Festival: Popcorn & Politics (2017) was published as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s ‘Framing Film Festivals’ series.

Mark Spratt

Mark has been Managing Director of independent film distribution company Potential Films since he established it in 1989. He was also co-founder of classics film distributor Chapel Distribution (1998-2015). He has extensive experience working for other distributors and managing several Melbourne independent cinemas between 1985- 2003. Mark has been a Senses of Cinema Committee Member since 2012, including three years as Treasurer. He has also been a Judge for the ATOM Awards (2014/15) and a Jury member at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival.

Volunteers and Interns

Senses of Cinema receives assistance from many volunteers and interns throughout the year. A huge thank you to Caitlin Johnson, Jarryd Brand, Belinda Goldman, Jasmine Moody, Mathilde Wennevold, Kiri Sullivan, Joanna Batsakis, Tess McArthur-Dowty, Stephanie Donaldson, Sian Mann and Harry McCallum.