Rochelle Siemienowicz

Rochelle Siemienowicz is a highly regarded film critic, journalist, editor and columnist.

She has a PhD in Australian cinema and was the long-time film editor for The Big Issue. She worked for many years as editor at the AFI | AACTA. Her work has been published widely, including in The Age, Kill Your Darlings, ScreenHub, ACMI, Lumina and SBS Movies.

As a local Melburnian she is a proud MIFF veteran. She has also just published a book, Fallen (Affirm Press), a memoir which has nothing at all to do with cinema.

Read an example of Rochelle’s work here.

Twitter handle: @Milan2Pinsk

Website: rochellesiemienowicz.com 

City I call home: Melbourne

Genre/style/region of cinema I am most passionate about: Australian, Documentary, World Cinema, films by and about women, movies about the intricacies and intimacies of relationships.

A film that changed me/my mind is Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) because it was an 'old' film from the 1950s, in black and white, yet expressed a viewpoint and wit and sensibility that felt thoroughly fresh and contemporary to me as wannabe wayward youth. 

MIFF 2015 film I’m most looking forward to: I'm going to cheat here and say the whole David Gulpilil retrospective because as a performer he is absolutely mesmerising and I love seeing him in anything. But I'm especially anticipating Peter Weir's The Last Wave. I've never seen it before - yet have read so much about it in every textbook on Australian cinema.

I’m looking forward to Critics Campus because: Although I'm there as a mentor I expect to learn so much from the other participants and to refresh my own critical practice; and because it's always a pleasure to meet and share views with other film-lovers. 

Cinema excites me because: each film opens up a new window in my world. I love the sense of expansion, and also the relief of recognition I get, with my favourite films, that I'm not alone.