Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 08 October
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
The role of the arts critic has undergone a profound shift in Australia. There are now fewer arts pages in our newspapers and more online outlets covering the arts. What impact is this having on the discussion of culture in Australia? In a post-Margaret and David world, what media space is available for critics to do their work? How does the critic balance the ‘consumer guide’ mode of criticism with more in-depth, less timely approaches?
Our panellists represent a broad survey of the Australian arts criticism scene. They work for outlets from the Big Issue to the Age; Meanjin to ABC RN. Each will bring their unique perspective on the role of the arts critic in a small industry full of big egos. Hosted by Anders Furze with Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Jonathan Green, Ramona Koval and Jason Di Rosso.
Featuring
Anders Furze
Anders Furze is film critic in residence at The Citizen and Program & Communications Coordinator at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne. His writing on film, television and popular culture has been published in Junkee, the Age, Mubi Notebook and Screen Machine journal. In 2014, he was a participant in the Melbourne International Film Festival’s inaugural Critics Campus.
Rebecca Harkins-Cross
Rebecca Harkins-Cross is a writer and cultural critic from Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has been published widely in journals and periodicals across Australia and the world.
Rebecca is currently a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University's Writing Program in New York City and finalising her PhD in Creative Writing at Monash University. Past roles include theatre critic at The Age, film editor at The Big Issue and long-running film columnist at The Lifted Brow.
Her book The Headless Woman will be out soon via Fireflies Press.
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Jonathan Green
Jonathan Green has been an editor, writer, commentator and broadcaster in a 40-year career as a journalist, beginning with a cadetship at The Canberra Times and taking in various Australian dailies: the Melbourne Herald ...
Ramona Koval
Ramona Koval is a writer who has worked as a journalist and broadcaster. Her most recent books are A Letter to Layla: Travels to our Deep Past and Near Future, Bloodhound: Searching For My Father, and By the Book: A Reader’s Guide to Life (all published by Text). She was the editor of two volumes of Best Australian Essays (Black Inc.). Her notable literary interviews are collected in Speaking Volumes: Conversations with Remarkable Writers (Scribe).
From 2006 to 2011 she presented Radio National’s Book Show, and before that a series of ABC Radio programs since the 1980s, including the iconic Books and Writing. She has written for the Age, the Australian, The Saturday Paper, and many international literary publications and made radio documentaries for ABC and BBC World Service. She is currently an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University.
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Jason Di Rosso
Jason Di Rosso is ABC RN’s film critic, host of the weekly film show The Final Cut and a reviewer across a range of RN programs.
Before becoming RN’s chief film specialist, Jason spent six years as associate producer and reviewer on Movietime, a weekly show hosted by Julie Rigg. Outside the ABC, his writing on film and popular culture has appeared in GQ magazine and the Australian.
Jason’s background in film goes back to the 1990s, when he completed a degree in communications at Perth’s Curtin University. His first job was behind the camera as a production runner, driving actors in a mini-van for a short-lived TV series called Sweat. It sank without a trace, though it helped launch the career of a young WA actor called Heath Ledger.
The next few years saw Jason slowly drift from the film to radio, and he made features for RN’s Social History Unit, 360 documentaries and The Comfort Zone. Since returning to film by way of radio, he has interviewed some of cinema’s most important talents, from Isabelle Huppert to Mike Leigh.