the Curb

Aussie genre filmmaking legend Kiah Roache-Turner is back with his latest flick, Beast of War, a WW2 story of soldiers fighting for their lives on a different kind of battlefield: the shark infested waters of the open ocean.

In the above interview, Kiah talks about the journey to getting Beast of War on screen, how the impact of Spielberg meant that he had to shoot the film in Australia, and what creating the giant water tank to shoot in was like, plus much more.

Beast of War is in Australian cinemas from 9 October 2025.

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Bina Bhattacharya is a creative storyteller whose work I've been following for a while now. Her 2017 short film Wild Dances embraced music and cultural identity against the backdrop of Eurovision, while her section in the exemplary anthology film Here Out West, titled The Eternal Dance, is the story from that film that has left the deepest mark on me. 

Music plays a major role in Bina's filmmaking, and it's another prominent aspect of her feature length debut film From All Sides, with Georgia Anderson's Nina using music to support her passion for dance. This is just one slice of the narrative tapestry that Bina is working with in From All Sides, a drama which presents narratives we rarely see on Australian screens, let alone in global cinema. From the audacious opening which sees wife and husband, Anoushka (Monique Kalmar) and Pascal (Max Brown), engaging in a steamy bisexual foursome, to their domestic lives as parents to Nina and Clyde (Gavril Kumar), and then into the workplace where Anoushka navigates the politics of a support business owned by Toula (Rebekah Elmaloglou). While, on paper, it might seem like there's a lot going on within From All Sides, Bina writes the film like a slice of life. 

As you'll hear in the following interview, the lived-in perspective of From All Sides comes from Bina herself and her desire to see bisexual stories on screen alongside Australian stories told from a South Asian perspective. This interview was recorded ahead of From All Sides world premiere at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, and its subsequent screening at the Queer Screen Film Fest. Queer Screen had previously taken From All Sides to the Marche Du Film in Cannes earlier in 2025 for their Queer Screen Goes to Cannes selection. 

This is a wide ranging interview with Bina, where we talk about what it means to present stories from Western Sydney on screen, what her creative journey was like to get to this feature film stage, the importance of seeing bisexual lives on screen, and much, much more. 

To find out more about Bina's work, make sure to follow her on Instagram @binafilmmaker. 

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Julie Pacino’s dark fairytale I Live Here Now is a powerful and complex debut feature that places the audience in the space between dream and nightmare as Rose (Lucy Fry) finds herself in an impossible but familiar hotel where she confronts the shadows and scars of her psyche.

Featuring unforgettable supporting cast including Madeleine Brewer, Matt Rife, and the iconic Sheryl Lee: I Live Here Now is a battle for individuation and selfhood in an internal and external reality that is hostile to Rose and her ambition to take control of her life.

Playing at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 13 September 2025 I Live Here Now will ignite the screen with Pacino’s bold vision. Tickets are available via SUFF.com.au.

Nadine Whitney spoke to Julie about what makes I Live Here Now frightening and empowering.

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With two feature films under his belt, Samuel Van Grinsven has quickly become a vital voice in Australian cinema. His feature debut, the lurid and sumptuous 2019 queer drama Sequin in a Blue Room, utilised neon lights and lingering shots of yearning to amplify the sense of lead actor Conor Leach's youthful Sequin finding his place in a new, inviting world.

With his follow up feature, Went Up the Hill, Samuel, alongside regular co-writer Jory Anast, explores facets of grief through a gothic possession drama. Here we follow Jack (Dacre Montgomery) who returns home to New Zealand for the funeral of his mother. There, he forms a fractious bond with Jill (Vicky Krieps), the widow of his mother. Where Sequin in a Blue Room explored different shades of blue, from bright neons to dark navy's, Went Up the Hill immerses viewers in shades of grey, placing Jack and Jill in a brutalist style home overlooking a cold lake.

This is a film that's hard to shake. I first saw Went Up the Hill over a year ago now and there are moments in the film which have lingered in my mind in a way that that haunts my dreams. The pairing of Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps is a masterful one, with the two exploring emotionality in a way that we rarely get to see on screen in an Australian film. It is, ostensibly, a film about grief and the loss of someone in your life. For Jack, as an estranged son, he has grappled with processing that grief while his mother was alive, making her true passing feel like a new advent of grief and loss. For Jill, that grief is amplified by the arrival of Jack at her partners house, and what that means for her ability to mourn the loss of her partner. These aspects, and many more, are tenderly explored in the film.

In the following conversation, recorded ahead of the films screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Samuel talks about that colour palette for the film, while also exploring the creative path to exploring grief on screen.

At the end of this interview, I misquote the title of Max Porter's essential book about grief, his 2015 novella titled Grief is the Thing with Feathers. I want to read a quote from that book which I feel touches on what this film is about 'Ghosts do not haunt, they regress. Just as when you need to go to sleep you think of trees or lawns, you are taking instant symbolic refuge in a ready-made iconography of early safety and satisfaction. That exact place is where ghosts go.'

Went Up the Hill arrives in Australian cinemas on 11 September. It is a film that demands a big screen viewing.

Read Nadine Whitney's review of Went Up the Hill here and listen to the interview with Dacre Montgomery here.

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The Sydney Underground Film Festival is back once more for another stellar year of underground, fringe cinema, short films and more. This years line-up includes an array of gloriously wild films including Fucktoys by Annapurna Sriram, Queens of the Dead by Tina Romero, Stelarc - Suspending Disbelief, The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man, Take48 shorts, and more. 

In the following chat with festival director Nathan Senn, I chat to him about pulling this years line-up together, what titles he's excited by, and the glorious poster art that was made for this years festival. 

To buy tickets and find out more about the festival, visit SUFF.com.au. 

If you want to find out more about the work we do on The Curb, then head over to TheCurb.com.au, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. 

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Writer, director, and actor Jessica Husband teams up with co-director Ethan Finch to craft the powerful short film Zombie. Jessica Husband plays Claire, a woman who sits on a picnic blanket on a cliffside, waiting for someone to arrive. She turns to her phone, listening to a voicemail from her partner Ted, the words he says provides Zombie with a weight that opens up the films themes of loss and grief.

In the following interview with Jessica and Ethan, the two talk about their collaborative process, how they balance the creative mindset versus the corporate mindset which they both utilise with The Vision Production House, a company which creates branded content with a creative perspective.

To find out more about Zombie, Jessica Husband or Ethan Finch, or the work created by The Vision Production house, visit the above links to their Instagram profiles.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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Whether it be loneliness, solitude, finding sanctuary in a stifled relationship or waiting for a takeaway meal, or maybe one of the most precious things of all, the comfort in creating for ones self, Kaite Fitz is shifting how we see ourselves on screen. Her short film Smoke, which premiered at the St Kilda Film Festival, presents Lianne Mackessy's main character, a woman who moves through her day, quietly being hollowed out by a void that's emerging within her. Her relationship exists, but it's more of an idea than anything else, yoga becomes an event tinged with friction. Her work, restoring art, is a rare sanctuary.

The title, Smoke, alludes to the lingering presence of something burnt, the smell of the past hanging into the future. Sometimes this is a comforting smell, like incense, or sometimes it's a smell that heralds a lie or the smothering of truth, like the lingering haze of cigarettes.

Kaite is an emerging Australian filmmaker who presents women who live familiar lives, rolling forward on a continuing existence that persists in the face of stagnation. We rarely see these characters on screen because we're so rarely invited to hear from and engage with women storytellers who present real people on screen. It's no surprise then that Kaite looks to filmmakers like Kelly Reichardt or Alena Lodkina as inspirations for the work that she's doing.

In the following interview, Kaite talks about her creative process, about having learned from filmmaker Michael Rowe, working with producer Miki Clarke, the notion of truth on screen, as well as exploring what her creative voice looks like on screen with films like Smoke, and in her as yet unproduced feature screenplay Peachy.

This interview is part of the ongoing series of emerging filmmakers who are part of the rising swell of Australian filmmakers. These are storytellers who are collectively, yet singularly, shaping what the Australian film oeuvre looks like, feels like, and sounds like. In turn, they are forming a new language for Australian cinema, shaping what stories are being told, how they're being presented, and much more.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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When Nadine Whitney interviewed actor Frank Mosley, she started their chat with a game akin to Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Want to know how to get to Meryl Streep from Frank? Easier than even Frank probably thinks. Frank starred in Geoff Marslett’s Quantum Cowboys which also featured Alex Cox. Alex Cox directed Ed Harris in Walker. Ed also features in Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of The Hours.

Frank is usually a supporting or character actor, but when given the chance to lead a film such as Cameron Bruce Nelson’s award-winning 2015 film Some Beasts there is a particular grace to his performance which proves he can (and should) carry a film.

Originally from Texas and now living in Los Angeles, Frank has been in three films with Lily Gladstone, Chained for Life directed by Aaron Schimberg, and is an accomplished director in his own right.

Frank has the incredible ability to create and sustain community within his artistic practice. He’s open to the absurd, the heartfelt, the just plain weird, and the full dramatic spectrum.

Nadine spoke to Frank about working with Albert Birney and Peter Ohs (he also featured in Ohs’ excellent Love and Work) about their 8-Bit fantasy OBEX in which he plays a television named Victor. Take a listen to Frank and his generous and warm presence (even before he’d finished his first coffee) and then go find his work.

Check out Nadine's reviews of OBEX and Quantum Cowboys.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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Filmmaker David Robinson-Smith is one of the major voices of the new Australian film industry. His films include Mud Crab, We Used to Own Houses, and his latest effort, The Shirt Off Your Back, each an essential entry in an increasingly vital filmography.

When we talk about this 'new wave of Australian filmmakers', a term which I'm starting to lean towards calling 'the rising swell of modern Australian cinema' - it doesn't role off the tongue, it's at least distinct from the last Australian new wave that we had, - we then think of people like David Robinson-Smith, cinematography Jaclyn Paterson, actor-writer Laneikka Denne, actor-director Frazer Bull-Clark, or actor Josh Mehmet.

Over the coming months, this notion of the rising swell of Australian cinema is one that I'll explore at length via conversations like this one with David Robinson-Smith, or essays about the creatives I'm spotlighting. Look out for upcoming chats with filmmakers like Lucy Coleman and Kate Fitzgerald.

To find out more about David's work, visit DavidRobinsonSmith.com.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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