Senior programmer, Adelaide Film Festival; associate programmer, international features, Tribeca; curator, First Films; consultant, Africa Film Fest Australia
“You [must] make sure you have a truly diverse programme that plays for the audiences you have and the audiences you want,” says Paul Struthers, who is “beyond excited” that the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival will be his first as senior programmer.
Struthers caught the film bug from the short-lived UK film magazine Neon, which he stumbled on as a kid with a paper round in Glasgow. He held roles at Odeon Cinemas, sales company Renaissance and UK distributor Revolver before moving to Australia in 2009.
Struthers hunts outside typical channels for new discoveries. Letterboxd is a favourite haunt and typing ‘queer films’ and related search terms into Google News daily when director of the Mardi Gras Film Festival from 2014 reaped rewards.
He joined San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ festival Frameline in 2017 and, once back from the US, served as a Sydney Film Festival programme consultant from 2020 to 2023. Director Nashen Moodley is the standout among many mentors: “He cheered me on and gave me opportunities and advice. And he’s kind.”
Struthers’ passion for “important, daring, entertaining, challenging” debut features and the annual New Directors/New Films festival at New York’s Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art inspired him to launch First Films Fest in Sydney in 2022. Audience hits at the 2023 edition included Chloe Abrahams’ The Taste Of Mango and Rebeca Huntt’s Beba.
“Hearing you have a film [for a festival] is like winning the lottery; sometimes it takes six months,” says Struthers. “But letting a filmmaker know they’ve not been selected is becoming harder.” It is made more difficult now Struthers is also producing — he is currently in production on Australian filmmaker Craig Boreham’s Down The Hume.
Contact: Paul Struthers
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