Freshflix Emerging Filmmakers' Conference & Short Film Festival

Polly is a creative producer, writer and director and a founding partner of Aquarius Films. She produced Berlin Syndrome, the third feature film from acclaimed filmmaker Cate Shortland (Lore, Somersault), written by Shaun Grant (Snowtown) and starring Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and also screened in the Panorama section of Berlin International Film Festival. Berlin Syndrome sold to Netflix and had a worldwide theatrical release in 2017.

Alongside Angie Fielder and Cecilia Ritchie she recently produced The Other Guy, a six-part narrative comedy series for Stan created by and starring Matt Okine. Polly was an executive producer on the feature documentary, Roller Dreams, which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2017 Sydney Film Festival and also executive produced the three short dramas selected for Screen NSW's 2017 Generator: Emerging Filmmakers Fund.

Prior to establishing Aquarius, Polly spent three years as an in-house producer at Matchbox Pictures where she worked across a slate of film and TV projects. During this time, Polly produced four documentaries for ABC TV including Miss South Sudan Australia and the highly acclaimed Anatomy series. She also wrote and directed the documentary Brain (ABC), and was one of the writers on Nowhere Boys, Matchbox's AACTA and Logie award-winning children's drama series. With Renegade Films, she wrote a one-hour documentary for the ABC called The Diplomat, The Artist and The Suit about internationally acclaimed architecture firm Denton Corker Marshall.

Polly has produced, written and directed over ten short dramas, including David Michôd’s award-winning shorts, Crossbow and Netherland Dwarf and John Evagora’s Joey, which won the 2013 St Kilda Film Festival. As a writer Polly has recently written and created an original TV series, which was selected as one of Gateway LA "Aussie List" finalists. Polly has a bachelor's degree in film and TV and a master's degree in screenwriting, both from the Victorian College of the Arts School of Film & TV in Melbourne.

Rosie Lourde is an award winning multi-hyphenate cross-platform screen content creator. Rosie is an actor/producer on digital series STARTING FROM NOW (SFN), which has amassed almost 100 million views across more than 230 countries with seasons 4 and 5 being acquired for broadcast in Australia. SFN has won numerous awards around the world including the IAWTV Diversity Award at HollyWeb 2017, Outstanding Diversity Award at Melbourne Webfest, Best Narrative Feature at the Mardi Gras Film Festival 2016 and Most Outstanding Ensemble Cast at the LA Webfest 2016, and Rosie won the award for Best Actress for her working SFN season 5 at the Vancouver Webfest.

Rosie is writer/director/producer on first person virtual reality series BREACH and is developing several other interactive VR experiences. Rosie’s first project as a producer, feature film SKIN DEEP, won the AfterEllen Best Indie Film of 2015 as well as a honourable mention for Best Narrative Feature at the Austin Film Festival 2014 and was nominated for both Australian Writers and Directors Guild awards. Rosie is currently the investment manager of Online Production at Screen Australia overseeing finance for digital series and narrative XR.

Alice Foulcher is a writer, actor and producer from Melbourne, Australia. She frequently collaborates with her husband, director and co-writer Gregory Erdstein — whom she met while studying at the VCA School of Film and Television in 2008. Their debut feature film was the indie breakout THAT’S NOT ME (2017), which earned her a Best Actress nomination for the 2018 Australian Film Critics Association (AFCA) awards and was ranked #5 of The Guardian’s Top 10 Australian films of 2017. THAT’S NOT ME recently won Best Film Under $500k at the 2018 Ozflix Independent Film Awards.

Her short films include A BIT RICH (2014, Tropfest), the critically lauded PICKING UP AT AUSCHWITZ (2012), and PARIS SYNDROME (2016) — all collaborations with Erdstein. In 2014, she was granted an eight month writing residency in Paris with Erdstein at the Cité des Arts Internationale where (aside from eating over 200 croissants and a lot of 3 euro wine) they wrote the screenplay for THAT’S NOT ME.

Thomas Wilson-White is an award-winning Australian writer/director working in narrative, live and content creation. He has worked with major clients including Youtube, Google and the Sydney Opera House. Thomas was accepted into the Bachelor of Film and Television Production at the Victorian College of the Arts at 17. While at VCA, his 2011 short THE GAY SON won the Byron Bay Queer Film Festival and was runner-up at the St Kilda Film Festival. He was accepted into the Graduate Diploma of Directing at AFTRS in 2015 and graduated with the short films SLEIGHT and BACK TO EARTH, the latter of which was accepted into The Rhode Island International Film Festival 2015, Cinequest 2016, Down Under Berlin 2016 and won the Gold Remi at Worldfest: Houston 2016. BACK TO EARTH is currently screening on ABC iView and on Virgin Australia flights.

In 2015, Thomas was granted support by Metro Screen to make a short thriller FISH RIVER with producer Lizzie Cater, which is in the final stages of completion. His other credits include music videos for Oisima's SUN OF TRUTH, Jack River's PALO ALTO, both of which premiered on DIY Magazine; and most recently PANOPTICON for Cloud Control which premiered on Fashion Journal. In 2017, Thomas graduated with a Master's degree in Screen Arts from AFTRS and made his first feature, THE GREENHOUSE which recently won a $10,000 completion grant for post-production from Queer Screen in association with the Mardi Gras Film Festival.

Most recently Thomas launched his production company EVERYONE WE KNOW with producer and long-time collaborator Lizzie Cater. They are currently in post on a short documentary jointly funded by the ABC and Screen Australia which will be broadcast on iView in 2018, ONLY DIFFERENT; and are developing a feature film and a TV series together.

Erin recently completed a 6 x 10minute short-form series Jade of Death that was nominated for 11 awards at the International Academy of Web Television in LA and won four awards including Best Series, Best Director and Best Ensemble Cast. Jade of Death has already garnered great interest domestically and internationally. In 2016, Jade of Death was one of ten projects worldwide selected for the Berlinale Project Lab, and Erin was selected as a writer/director for the Berlinale Talent Campus. The series premiered in Australia at the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival on Friday 23rd February 2018. Erin is in development for a second season with ABC and Screen Australia. Internationally, the series is being distributed by leading short-form sales agent Rockzeline.

Erin is a 2014 recipient of the Emerging Filmmakers Fund from Screen NSW for her short film Alone (Starring Shari Sebbens, Charlotte Best and Nathaniel Dean). In early 2014, Erin directed a scene on children’s series In Your Dreams for Endemol Entertainment and Seven2 during her Director’s Attachments with Ralph Strasser. In 2015, she was awarded Talent Escalator Funding by Screen Australia to complete a director’s attachment with Kriv Stenders on the Essential Media and Entertainment television production The Principal. During this attachment Erin directed the EPK for the SBS. Erin is also in development on her first feature film Please Help with co-writer Huna Amweero and a television series Squatters with co-creator Chris Squadrito. Squatters was shortlisted for Fremantle Media's Blue Sky Initiative.

Taylor Litton-Strain is an award-winning producer. Her short films have screened at over 70 film festivals and venues worldwide, on television, on ABC iview and on airlines as part of QANTAS’ and Virgin’s inflight entertainment programs. Her films have collectively won over 30 awards, one of which includes the prestigious Iris Prize worth £25,000 for her short film All God’s Creatures, starring Ed Oxenbould (Paper Planes).

Taylor has completed producer’s attachments with renowned Australian drama producers — Ian Collie on crime-drama The Broken Shore, the highest rating ABC telemovie in 2015, and also with Imogen Banks and John Edwards during production on their popular Channel Ten drama series Offspring and pre-production on Channel 10 series Puberty Blues – Series 2 and Channel 9 and Stan series Gallipoli.

In 2017, Taylor established her company Last Frame Productions and has now completed her first long-form production Jade of Death; a 6 x 10 minute supernatural thriller, with creator and writer/director Erin Good. Jade of Death was developed at the Berlinale Talents Project Lab, is a recipient of QueerScreen’s Completion Fund, is supported by Screen Australia’s Online Production Fund and is being distributed around the world by leading short-form international sales agent Rockzeline. Taylor has a slate of projects in development for online, television and cinema, including a second season of Jade of Death with ABC and Screen Australia.

Kacie Anning is a writer and director working predominantly in TV comedy. Kacie’s online comedy series Fragments of Friday, which she wrote, directed and starred in, won the ADG Award for Best Direction in an Original Online Project for Series 2. She recently made her longform debut directing all six episodes of Matt Okine’s break-up comedy The Other Guy for Stan and prior to that, earned credits on ABC and Seeso’s sketch comedy series Wham Bam Thank-You Ma’am and You’re Skitting Me for ABC 3. She is also the co-writer and director of the Sydney Opera House-produced satirical web series Minister For Men, starring Gretel Killeen.

A versatile filmmaker, Enzo is recognised among his peers as a prolific and innovative producer, director, writer and editor. Over the last 10 years, Enzo Tedeschi co-produced the hit indie feature documentary Food Matter (2008), which has become synonymous around the world alongside its follow-up Hungry For Change (2012) as benchmarks in the wellbeing industry.

Enzo joined forces with Julian Harvey to write, produce and edit the horror feature film The Tunnel (2011) — a project whose innovative approach to funding and distribution saw it hit international cinema screens despite being crowdfunded and simultaneously given away for free online. The film reached a global audience of 15 million, and garnered Enzo and Julian the Screen Producers Association of Australia Award for Breakthrough Independent Producers Of The Year in 2011.

Enzo was executive producer on The Crossing (2013), a feature adventure documentary which won the Audience Award at Sydney Film Festival that year, and was released theatrically in Australia by Umbrella Films in 2013. Enzo also created  the multiple award-winning series Event Zero (2012), an online series in association with Movie Extra Webfest and Screen Australia, and Airlock (2015), a science fiction series starring AACTA Award nominee Mark Coles Smith and directed by Marc Furmie (Terminus) which premiered on SyFy Channel. Enzo was also a co-creator and segment director of A Night Of Horror Volume 1 (2015) along with Dean Bertram, director of the long-running Sydney horror film festival of the same name starring Bianca Bradey (Wyrmwood, Rendel).

Most recently, Enzo produced Skinford (2017), Skinford Chapter Two (2018), and Pet Killer (2018) as well as making his theatrical feature film debut as a director with Event Zero (2017). Enzo is also writing, producing and directing several licensed and original interactive VR projects as part of his slate for 2018 and beyond.

Ron Brown is the CEO and co-founder of Aussie streaming channel Ozflix, dedicated to (eventually) streaming every Aussie movie. Ever. His career spans 45 years as a writer, director, producer, DOP and editor, and has resulted in nearly 1500 completed films, from TVCs to feature films. His films have won local and international awards, screened around the world and his work has been seen on every Australian television service.