The Adelaide Film Festival 2023 Feature Fiction and Feature Documentary competitions were decided by a prestigious jury. Their expertise covers a broad range of engagements with the screen, from writing, criticism, exhibition to production.
We thank them for their passionate and dedicated investment in deciding the 2023 winners, awarding the directors exquisite Jam Factory designed awards and $20,000 cash.
Kitty Green
Kitty Green is an award-winning Australian filmmaker now based in New York. In 2012, Kitty spent a year in her mother’s native Ukraine shooting with the protest movement ‘Femen’. Kitty’s first feature documentary, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013) premiered in Venice before going on to over 50 festivals internationally. Following her acclaimed hybrid film Casting JonBenet (2017), Green’s feature debut, The Assistant, premiered at Telluride in 2019. The Royal Hotel is Green’s second feature and will open AFF2023.
Alexander Matius
Alexander Matius is an experienced film curator based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is the Program Director for Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF), one of the foremost film festivals in Indonesia profiling Asian cinema on the world stage. He is also a Cinema Programmer for FLIX Cinema and part of Cinema Poetica, a collective platform for film studies and criticism. He was previously Manager of Kineforum, an open-air cinema built as part of the Jakarta Biennale. In addition to JAFF, Matius is currently the Programmer of Kinosaurus, a microcinema located in Jakarta.
Sally Riley
Until recently the ABC’s Head of Drama and Entertainment, Wiradjuri woman Sally Riley is known for supporting key talent at all stages of the creative process. Sally was Executive Producer on both the award-winning film Mabo and the acclaimed series Redfern Now – the first television drama commissioned, written, acted and produced by Indigenous Australians. In 2020 Riley was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in recognition of her drive to champion diverse storytelling in Australia.
David Rooney
Jury President
An entertainment industry reporter and critic for more than 30 years, David Rooney grew up in Australia and has lived for the past 20 years in New York, where he works as Chief Film Critic for The Hollywood Reporter. Prior to that, he was based in Rome, serving as Chief Italian Correspondent for Variety. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
Goran Stolevski
Goran Stolevski was born and grew up in Macedonia before migrating to Australia in his teens. His debut feature, You Won’t Be Alone, premiered in official competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, while his second, Of an Age, opened the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival before winning the $100,000 CinefestOz prize for Best Australian Film. In 2022 he was named as one of Variety’s Top 10 Directors to Watch. His latest film, Housekeeping for Beginners will have its Australian premiere as part of AFF2023.