Official Jury for Emerging Narrative Feature Competition Announced

We’re thrilled to announce the official jury for the inaugural Emerging Narrative Feature Competition: filmmaker Fadia Abboud (Here Out West, House of Gods), critic and essayist Michael Sun (The Guardian, ABC Arts) and filmmaker Samuel Van Grinsven (Went Up the Hill; Sequin in a Blue Room, MGFF20). All longtime supporters of Queer Screen, both Fadia and Samuel have screened their work at the festival, while Michael has moderated panels and judged My Queer Career.

The Emerging Narrative Feature Competition offers a $2,500 cash prize to one of six nominated films. Open to filmmakers making their first or second narrative feature, this year’s nominees are all narrative debuts: Cactus Pears (dir. Rohan Parashuram Kanawade), Love Letters (dir. Alice Douard), Lucky, Apartment (dir. Kangyu Garam), Outerlands (dir. Elena Oxman), Plainclothes (dir. Carmen Emmi) and Sauna (dir. Mathias Broe).

Fadia Abboud

Fadia Abboud is a filmmaker whose work spans drama, comedy and documentary. She most recently directed every episode of House of Gods which was in completion in Series Mania 2024, and earned a win for Best Actor for Kamel ElBasha. The series earned Fadia an ADG Award nomination and a 2025 AACTA nomination for Best Miniseries. She is currently attached to direct the boundary-pushing sci-fi feature 2 Moons for Co-Curious.

Fadia’s television credits include Four Years Later (SBS), Year Of (Stan), Barons and Les Norton (ABC), After the Verdict and Here Come the Habibs! (Nine), Australian Gangster (Seven), and the International Emmy-winning kids’ series Hardball (ABC Me). Her episode of Five Bedrooms (Network 10) was nominated for an ADG Award.

In film, she directed a segment of the anthology Here Out West, which opened the Sydney Film Festival, and has made several acclaimed shorts, including Concern for Welfare and Club Arak and a web series I Luv U But, all with queer characters and themes. Her early breakout was the 2005 SBS documentary I Remember 1948. From 2007 to 2017, she served as co-director of the Arab Film Festival Australia.

Michael Sun

Michael Sun is a critic, editor and essayist from China and Australia. He is a culture writer at The Guardian, where he recently hosted the online culture podcast Saved for Later, and his writing on film and music has also been published in Metrograph, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, ABC Arts, Esquire, Sydney Review of Books, Australian Book Review, Vice, The Age and many more. In his spare time, he designs posters for events, lovers, friends and enemies. He writes a monthly column for Shameless where he cosplays as an agony aunt.

Samuel Van Grinsven

Samuel Van Grinsven is an Australian/New Zealand screenwriter and director. His sophomore feature Went Up the Hill world premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival as a Special Presentation. The unique ghost story stars Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things). Produced alongside the acclaimed Causeway Films (Talk to Me, The Babadook), and will release in cinemas September 2025.

Samuel’s debut feature Sequin in the Blue Room premiered at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature. It soon became a festival hit screening at the likes of TIFF Next Wave, Palm Springs IFF and BFI Flare. In 2020, the film released theatrically in the UK and Australia before being picked up by Amazon as a Prime Exclusive streaming release.

In 2018 Samuel completed his Masters in Directing at the Australian Film Television and Radio School with a research area focused on the New Queer Cinema movement of the 90s. He was the first student to graduate with a feature (Sequin in the Blue Room) as his graduate project. His prior short films have been selected for both international and domestic festivals.