Earlier this year, when the Melbourne International Film Festival announced that it would be running a ‘Critics Campus’ for young and emerging writers, there were rumblings in the freelance film writing community. Did we really need more snotty little film critics competing for the same tiny pool of poorly paid work? And can you really ‘teach’ a person to be a film critic? And what are film critics for, anyway, in the age of online fandom?
Rochelle Siemienowicz is Screen Content Lead at Screenhub. She is a writer, film critic and cultural commentator with a PhD in Australian cinema and was the co-host of Australia's longest-running film podcast 'Hell is for Hyphenates'. Rochelle has written a memoir, Fallen, published by Affirm Press. Her second book, Double Happiness, a novel, is out with Midnight Sun on October 1, 2024. Instagram: @Rochelle_Rochelle Twitter: @Milan2Pinsk
