Sam Worthington

Actor

Sam Worthington is returning to BIFF for the second year running after starring in last years opening film Gettin ' Square.  Worthington has starred in a number of Australian films, including Dirty Deeds and Bootmen.  His Hollywood credits include Hart's War with Bruce Willis and The Great Raid. 

To view full Somersault production details click here

Jafar Panahi

Director

Jafar Panahi studied directing at Theran’s College of Cinema and Television. Before turning to feature films, he made several short and medium-length films for Iranian television and served as assistant director on Abbas Kiarostami’s Under the Olive Trees (1994), (BIFF 1995). His highly successful and critically acclaimed directorial debut, 1995’s The White Baloon (BIFF 1996), received numerous awards, including the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Crimson Gold  is screening at this years festival.  To access full production notes and Panahi's biography click here

David Stratton

Presenter

David Stratton will be presenting this years Chauvel Award, doing a Q&A with Geoffrey Rush at the event.  David Stratton is a former director of the Sydney Film Festival, former film critic for the international film industry magazine 'Variety', and is currently film critic for 'The Australian'.

Geoffrey Rush

Actor

Geoffrey Rush is not only starring in this years opening film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers but will also be in attendance at the festival, to be presented with the Chauvel Award 2004.

To read an extract from Bruce Malloy's essay on the incredible achievements spanning Geoffrey Rush's career click here.

Cathy Henkel 

Director

Cathy Henkel's documentary The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face is screening in this years unsurpassable line up of documentaries.

Australian documentary filmmaker Cathy Henkel has worked extensively in television and media as a writer, producer, and director. Her documentary Losing Layla won the 2001 ATOM award and was nominated for an AFI award.

To view production notes on The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face and to access Henkel's biography click here

Paul McDermott

Director

(still from The Scree)

Paul McDermott will be accompanying his Australian short The Scree.  Five friends set off on an adventure in a small boat. They find a mysterious island that is covered in weird plants and inhabited by deadly creatures. One by one, the travellers die a terrible death...

For full procduction details of McDermott's The Scree click here

Mark Achbar      

Director

Mark Achbar will be attending the screening of his documentary of timely critical inquiry - The Corporation. An author and filmmaker for 30 years, Mark Achbar is best known for Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, which he co-directed and co-produced, and is the top-grossing feature documentary in Canadian history.

For full production details of The Corporation click here

James Benning

Director

James Benning was born during World War II into a German working-class community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In a filmmaking career spanning 30 years, Benning has completed at least 36 films, including 14 of feature length (around 60 minutes or more) and several video installations.  A small retrospective of James Benning's work is screening at this years festival.

To read Bruce Hodson's essay on James Benning click here

Steven Schneider

Curator

Steven Jay Schneider accompanies his thematically and stylistically diverse series of remarkable Czech horror and fantasy films. Schneider is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Harvard University, and in cinema studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He is the editor of Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe (FAB Press), Horror Film and Psycho-analysis: Freud's Worst Nightmares (Cambridge UP), and Underground USA: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon (Wallflower Press). His latest book is 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (ABC Books).

To read Schneider's essay on the Czech Gothic series he curated   click here.

Sekhar Das

Director

Sekhar Das holds a Master in Arts, and has written for television soaps and thrillers. He has directed 30 short films for television, made several documentaries on traditional performing arts, and has also acted in Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen films. Songs of Mahulbani is his début feature film.

To read full production details on Songs of Mahulbani, click here

Kim Dong-won  (Bio)