Rough Cut is an online film publication which offers reviews of releases pertinent to Australia, festival coverage, interviews, curated media recommendations and further reflections. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we live and work—where sovereignty has never been ceded—and we recognise ancient, ongoing practices of Indigenous image-making and storytelling as vital to cinema’s past, present, and future. 

At Rough Cut, we view film criticism as a social medium, pursuing thoughtful, curious analysis with an eye for accessibility and a desire to draw the film community into rich conversations with other artists and art forms. We believe that film criticism exists beyond the poles of the pithy and the academic—living in conversations, diaries, drawings, and poems. Driven by a lateral, mixed-media approach to criticism and an interest in spectatorship as a creative act of its own, we invite responses from writers and artists who may feel at odds with the ‘film critic’ label. 

Rough Cut was founded in 2019 by Ivana Brehas, Samuel Harris, Eliza Janssen, Valerie Ng, André Shannon, Claire White, and Debbie Zhou, whose collaboration began with the 2018 iteration of Melbourne International Film Festival’s Critics Campus—a week-long writers workshop for emerging film critics. While the founding members have now moved on, their innovation and passion for film criticism as a democratic form continue to underpin Rough Cut as it resumes under Indigo Bailey and Tiia Kelly’s editorial leadership. 

Those interested in writing for Rough Cut can find further information and our guide to pitching here.

Founders:  Ivana Brehas, Samuel Harris, Eliza Janssen, Valerie Ng, André Shannon, Claire White, Debbie Zhou

Managing Editor: Indigo Bailey

Commissioning Editor: Tiia Kelly

Design: Oliver Quinn & Indigo Bailey

Editorial Team: Đăng Tùng (Ringo) Bach, Kevin Bui, Charles Carrall, Lauren Collee, Eric Jiang, Seb Petroni, Sam Himawan, Hillary Pan

Contact: roughcuteditorial@gmail.com