Angela is the Co-Founder and Director of SF3 – SmartFone Flick Fest, now the biggest film festival in the world solely dedicated to smartphone filmmaking. Founded in 2015, they have had sell-out seasons at the Sydney Opera House, Event Cinemas George St, Palace Chauvel and the Actors Centre Australia Theatre. SF3 screens short and feature films from all over the world from filmmakers of all ages, including a very successful kids category for under 18s. They have a huge education program and Angela has taught smartphone filmmaking and story-telling to students in all corners of metro and regional Australia, in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Jamaica, across Europe, America, Canada and across Asia. SF3 was ranked by American Express as one of 12 international film festivals worth travelling to alongside Cannes and Sundance. SF3 was also the Australian Champion Small Business Award Winner in 2022 in the Performing Arts Category and finalists again in 2023.

Angela is also an Accessible Filmmaking Tutor for Bus Stop Films. Bus Stops Films has been in operation since 2009, teaching adults with disabilities and others from marginalised communities film studies. With Bus Stop Films she has Directed and Co-Written four iPhone shorts- The Society Experiment, Career Fight, #CHILDBOSS and Dinner Expectations – which are currently on the festival circuit and have already won numerous awards including Best Professional Short and Best Documentary at Cinephone Film festival in Spain and Best Documentary at the RE-Generation International Youth Film Festival in Melbourne and Official Selections across the world including at the Byron Bay International FF.

She is also an accomplished emerging director and writer in both film and theatre. Short films include: Upsold, Face the Day, The Circle Game & BE. Theatre includes: The Restaurant Diaries, Romeo and Juliet and Weeing on a Stick which won the Wildcards Award at Short+Sweet. 

Angela teaches filmmaking and acting throughout Australia with SF3, NIDA, Milk Crate Theatre and The Wayside Chapel in Sydney and has produced countless short films and documentaries with her students and staged many theatre productions including Cosi. She is a passionate educator and especially loves teaching in the not for profit space.

Angela also works as a performer. Her most recent acting credits include From All Sides, A Place To Call Home Season 6, Love Child Season 2 & Top of the Lake: China Girl. She has also worked as a dancer, singer and acrobat in over 16 countries for companies including Princess Cruise Lines, MEI, Cartoon Network and in various circuses. 

She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Griffith University and a Master’s in Fine Arts and Creative Writing from UTS. She has just finished writing her first feature film and is working on her second and third.

Ali spent her childhood in Hobart performing as an actress, dancer and singer, touring New Zealand and Japan and around Australia with the Australian Rosny Children’s Choir. While still in Hobart, she performed in a number of productions with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Theatre Now Youth Theatre Company and Playback Theatre Company.

After moving to Sydney, Ali performed in several plays with ATYP, including The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, directed by Michael Gow for the Sydney Theatre Festival. She studied acting at The Actors Centre before turning her focus to working in radio as an announcer and news presenter on stations around Australia and overseas. She later made a return to theatre, starring in WAGS – Wives and Girlfriends at the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Festivals.

Ali has also since appeared in the award winning Short and Sweet play, Weeing on a Stick, which has now been made into a short film. She has also finished shooting the short film Jimbra. Ali has recently performed in the two Mongrel Mouth productions of The Age of Entitlement and LikeMe.

Ali has also worked as a producer with Sunrise on Channel 7 and now keeps herself busy producing and presenting for ABC NewsRadio.

Sirmai Arts Marketing director Geoff Sirmai is a communications expert with 25 years’ experience – plus a ‘hands-on’ professional theatre and music background which makes him uniquely qualified to get the best result for clients’ events.

 Geoff’s journalistic experience and profile is among the highest in the country, with some 5000 radio and 500 television appearances under his belt as broadcaster, radio presenter, television reporter and spokesperson. A former reporter on ABC-TV Investigators, senior producer in news and current affairs for the Seven Network and ABC Radio presenter, he appeared more than 100 times on the Channel 9 Today show and wrote a long-running Your Rights column in the Sunday Telegraph and other publications. He is the author of the entertaining best-seller, The Confident Consumer (Allen & Unwin) and holds a BA (Hons) degree in English and Music and an MA (Hons) in Australian Drama from Sydney University.

And as an actor, musician and entertainer, he also knows what it’s like behind the footlights – as well as the rigours of writing, producing and directing theatre. From his work with Australia’s iconic Renaissance Players early music group, to decades of ‘straight’ theatre, musical comedy, film/TV roles and corporate entertainment with Comic Roasts, Geoff has hundreds of stage and screen credits to his name.

In the world of arts publicity, Geoff’s contacts throughout the media are second-to-none.
Former media manager and spokesperson for the Australian Consumers’ Association (Choice Magazine) and Public Affairs Director for the NSW Health Department, Geoff established Watchdog Communications in 1999, consulting widely to government, arts, community and corporate clients.

Since establishing Sirmai Arts Marketing, Geoff and his associates have earned a reputation for elegant, economical and effective publicity on behalf of clients – always based on thoughtful strategy, not whim.

www.sirmai.com.au 

https://www.kenneyogilvie.com