2013 JUDGES

This year we have a slightly different system, with a first round assessment panel of readers.

The scripts short-listed through that process will go through to our main judges, who will make the final deliberations and decide on the different awards to be given.

Our expert final judges are:

SP Krause and Shayne Armstrong

The screenwriting duo of Armstrong and Krause know pretty much all there is to know about Australian genre filmmaking these days. Their feature screenplay Black Echoes will be produced by Murray Pope and has Greg McLean attached to direct in 2013. They wrote the original screenplay for the feature film Acolytes which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness session in 2008 and at the Fantastic Film Festival in Austin, Texas. They were contributing writers on BAIT 3D the feature film, directed by Kimble Rendall, which became the most successful Australian film in China. They are writing feature films for Australian producers including Michael Robertson, Murray Pope, David Jowsey and Michael Wrenn and have a number of their own original feature film projects at various stages of development. Currently and as their writing schedules permit they are shooting their feature film script, 18, with SP Krause directing. They have a lot of other credits as well, but you get the idea. See http://armstrongkrause.wordpress.com/ for more.

Ursula Dabrowsky

Ursula Dabrowsky is a name to watch in horror. She’s also been a supporter of the Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival from the start, and we’re thrilled that she’ll be a guest of the festival in 2013. Ursula wrote her first psychological horror screenplay, Family Demons, and shot the film in early 2006 in two weeks with a production budget of $6,500. Three years and $35,000 later, the film went on to screen at numerous national and international film festivals and won Best Foreign Film and Best Actress at the Fright Night International Film Festival in the United States. Ursula Dabrowsky is now in post on the second instalment of her Demon Trilogy Inner Demon, a supernatural revenge horror film that obtained financing through the SAFC’s FilmLab. She’s writing the third one too, it’s called Demonheart. Here’s the Facebook page for Inner Demon.

Vicki Madden

Vicki has been working as a writer, script editor and story producer for over 15 years. She has lengthy experience working on television series in Australia, Ireland and the UK, including as story producer on The Bill and working with Lynda La Plante on Trial and Retribution. In Australia Vicki has worked on a wide variety of dramas including Water Rats, Stingers and Halifax fp. Her most recent credit is the telemovie Blood Brothers, based on the Gilham family murders, one of Australia’s most notorious criminal cases. She currently lives in Tasmania, her home state, where she is has worked with many emerging writers. For more information visit Vicki’s website, Sweet Potato Films.