Sebastian Bertoli
Co-Founder
Director/Producer/Actor
Sebastian is an Australian filmmaker and actor. As a second generation Italian and Dutch immigrant, he balances precariously between the worlds of the colonial settler and foreign outsider, shaped by coming of age in a country in the throes of cultural adolescence.
He is a 2017 Masters (Film & Television) graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. For the last dozen years he has acted professionally worldwide.
Over the last decade, he has directed over a dozen shorts and web episodes, exploring both naturalistic and stylised genre work. He is passionate about female-driven work, stories that explore underrepresented and unconventional characters.
Festival highlights: The Happiest Of My Life (2015), awarded Best Ozploitation Short at the American Grindhouse Film Festival, and queer erotic thriller Candy Cravings (2013), screened in over 25+ festivals across the US, Europe and India.
Psychological arthouse horror Carved Into Flesh (2019) is still enjoying a successful festival run, screening this year at the Atlantic Bridge Film Festival & Aphelion Film Festival.
Experimental horror short Tiny Darlings (2022) will premiere at the Nevada Women’s Film Festival this month.
Music video directing credits include clips for Ru Paul’s Drag Race Down Under finalist Karen From Finance, Forest Collective and Die Roten Punkte.
In 2019 Sebastian was selected for the Directors Immersive program at CinefestOZ to pitch sci-fi feature She Now Romeo, written by Jeni Bezuidenhout, to an industry panel.
He was selected for the 2020 La Selva’s Werner Herzog Colombian Jungle Film Accelerator program, however was unable to attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sebastian is currently in preproduction to direct Panopticon Collective’s first feature film We Will Never Die, which begins principal photography this October.
www.sebastianbertoli.com
Jeni Bezuidenhout
Co-Founder
Writer/Producer/Actor
Jeni is an emerging HOH/deaf actor and screenwriter, who has made significant contributions to theatre, film, and online content. Born in South Africa, currently based in Melbourne, she holds an Advanced Diploma of Professional Screenwriting from RMIT and a Masters of Screenwriting from the Victorian College of the Arts.
Jeni is excited about creating content that pierces the soul. She has written half a dozen produced shorts, two features, several pilots, and full-length plays. She worked as the lead writer on a funded web series, and her sci-fi feature film She Now Romeo was accepted into the Originate development and production program, a joint initiative by Film Victoria, SBS and Arenamedia.
Her screen works explore alienation, body image, postnatal depression, idealised/toxic relationships. She has also examined motherhood, sisterhood, and female identity in her screen work.
Jeni's writing includes theatrical works addressing mental health, self-worth, suicide, as well as gender and racial inequality. Her play Thula Thula was selected for La Mama Theatre's Explorations 2019 season.
As an actor, Jeni has appeared in theatre, film, and online content, including the feature film In Corpore (2020) and the cult horror film Cat Sick Blues (2015). She has performed in the web series 2121 (2020) and various short films, as well as commercials. Her stage work includes performances at La Mama Theatre, Butterfly Club, and Chapel Off Chapel.
Appearing as the lead in the sell-out Adelaide Fringe season of Altar Girl by Hannah Samuel (The Heights), Jeni's performance was described as “incredibly magnetic” (yaniism) and that “at times chills you to the bone, and at other times nearly makes you laugh out loud” (Emma Connell-Doherty, Great Scott).
Jeni is currently in preproduction for Panopticon Collective’s debut feature film which she wrote, We Will Never Die, which shoots in October 2023 and January 2024.
