Talking Pictures Guilty Pleasures

Talking Pictures - Guilty Pleasures

We all have a film we’re embarrassed to admit we like. A film that, despite our awareness that it’s overloaded with cheesiness or bad acting, we have sitting in our DVD collection (Michael Bay anyone?)

Join comedians Lawrence Leung (screenwriter of Sucker, MIFF 2015), Hannah Gadsby and Alan Brough, director Kriv Stenders (The Principal, MIFF 2015) and ABC's Zak Hepburn as they reveal some unexpected, shameful favourite films in their cinematic repetoire and discuss why they believe these shouldn’t have been overlooked by critics and audiences.

 

Lawrence Leung is an actor, comedian, screenwriter and geek. He co-wrote the Australian feature film Sucker that premieres at MIFF 15. Sucker is an adaptation of Lawrence's award-winning one-man stage show that has played festivals in Australia, Edinburgh, Dublin and a sold-out season at the Sydney Opera House. On the small screen, Lawrence created the AFI-nominated TV comedy series Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure and Lawrence Leung’s Unbelievable (ABC1). Recently, Lawrence co-wrote and starred in Australia’s first kung-fu comedy series, Maximum Choppage (ABC2) and somehow did not injure himself.

Alan Brough has been performing as long as he can remember. He has worked in film, television, on stage and radio as a writer, director, actor, broadcaster and stand-up comedian. He has appeared in five feature films and in numerous TV shows. He is probably best known for his seven-year stint as team captain on ABC1’s beloved musical quiz show Spicks & Specks. Until the end of 2011 Alan was heard Sunday mornings in Melbourne and across Victoria on ABC 774. This year, Alan has performed as part of The Narelles with Casey Bennetto – where they sing about plumbers who stink of "socks, oil and ham", sex tapes, and a Kenny G tribute album – at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Zak Hepburn is a Melbourne based film critic and programmer. Zak currently reviews films for ABC TV's national News Breakfast program and the weekly ABC Overnights radio program. His critical writing work has also appeared in various Fairfax Media publications. From 2010 he has curated film programs for numerous national cinema locations and film festivals, and he is currently the General Manager of The Astor Theatre. His passion lies in genre cinema but will watch anything that has a frame rate.

Kriv Stenders is one of Australia’s most renowned and respected film directors, with numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning shorts, documentaries, music videos, television commercials and feature films to his credit. His feature films include The Illustrated Family Doctor, Blacktown, Boxing Day, and Lucky Country. He is the director of enormously popular Red Dog, which earned over $20 million at the box office upon release, making it one of the top ten highest grossing Australian films of all time. His most recent feature film is Kill Me Three Times, which will be released nationally in September, and his new television work for SBS, The Principal, starring Alex Dimitriades, is currently World Premiering at MIFF.

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