Meet the Creators of The Royal Hotel
Featuring Producers Liz Watts and Kath Shelper, Writer/Director Kitty Green, Co-Writer Oscar Redding and Composer and Sound Designer Jed Palmer
Friday 9 February
1:30pm AEST
Join us for an exclusive discussion with the dream team behind THE ROYAL HOTEL and hear from some of the key players who brought this powerful story to life. Featuring Producers Liz Watts and Kath Shelper, Writer/Director Kitty Green, Co-Writer Oscar Redding and Composer and Sound Designer Jed Palmer.
Americans Hanna and Liv are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called ’The Royal Hotel’ in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that grows rapidly out of their control.
Directed by AACTA nominee Kitty Green (THE ASSISTANT, CASTING JON BENET) and produced by Liz Watts, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning of See Saw Films (THE KING'S SPEECH, THE POWER OF THE DOG, LION), and Kath Shelper of Scarlett Pictures (THE NEW BOY), this is a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of one of the most talked-about films of the year. As The Observer UK recently said- Australian director Kitty Green follows the skin-crawling psychological torture of 2019’s The Assistant with the brilliant, nerve-shredding The Royal Hotel, cementing her status as one of the very best in the game at showing a woman’s eye view of a male-dominated world.
Featuring
Kitty Green
Kitty Green is an award-winning Australian filmmaker. Her first narrative feature The Assistant premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2019 and screened at Sundance and Berlin Film Festival in 2020 before being released theatrically in the USA. It was nominated for best independent film at The Gotham Awards in 2021 and received multiple nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards later that year.
Born in Australia, Kitty studied filmmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. After graduating film school, Kitty worked as an editor and producer for the ABC. In 2012, Kitty spent a year in her mother’s native Ukraine shooting with the protest movement ‘Femen’. Kitty’s first feature documentary, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2013 and screened at over 50 festivals internationally. In 2015, Kitty’s documentary short, The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul premiered at Sundance and won the Jury Prize. Kitty’s hybrid feature Casting JonBenet premiered at Sundance and Berlin Film Festival in 2017 and was picked up by Netflix as a Netflix Original. In 2018, Kitty was a Sundance Fellow in the ‘Art of Nonfiction' initiative.
Oscar Redding
A kid from remote regional Australia, who has been working in theatre, film and television for over 30 years, as an actor, director, writer and producer but not necessarily in that order.
His writing credits include the feature film Van Dieman‘s Land that he co-wrote with director Jonathan Auf Der Heide, a film that won Best International (Non European) Film at Lund Film Festival in Sweden as well as the Holden Award for Best Script - Special Mention at Torino.
He is also known for his adaption of The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, (a feature film that he also directed) that was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the play An Evening with the Devil for Playbox Theatre Company and the web series Cop Hard.
As an actor he has worked with some of Australia’s most exciting and respected theatre companies, including Ilbijirri, Belvoir, Malthouse, Yirra Yaakin and the Sydney Theatre Company, and has over 30 screen credits for film and television including Sea Change, The Turning, Redfern Now, Puberty Blues, Beaconsfield, The Principle, Deep Water, The Twelve, The Secret Life of Us and the soon to be released Bay of Fires.
He is recognised internationally for his acting work in Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake and also the central role of Alexander Pearce in the feature film Van Dieman‘s Land.
Liz Watts
Liz Watts is a multi-award-winning film and television producer and executive producer. Liz joined See-Saw Films (Aust) in 2022 as Head of Film and Television.
Liz is currently producing Wizards, David Michôd’s feature with Pete Davidson for A24. Also in late development, Liz is Executive Producing Sam Strauss’ 6 part limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar. Liz’ recent credits include Executive Producer of comedy 6 part-er Preppers, created by Nakkiah Lui and Gabe Dowrick for ABC TV, and Executive Producer on the series Fires with showrunner/ EP Belinda Chayko and EP Tony Ayres for ABC TV. Other recent Executive Producer credits include 6-part Peter Duncan created series Operation Buffalo for ABC TV, and 6-part series Stateless for ABC TV and Netflix.
Liz’s other work includes producing David Michôd’s feature The King starring Timothée Chalamet for Netflix Originals, and Justin Kurzel’s feature True History of the Kelly Gang. Also Producer of feature Mary Magdalene, starring Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix, Executive Producer on the 6 season US series adaptation of Animal Kingdom for TNT, and Producer of ABC TV online comedy series, Kiki and Kitty.
Liz also produced The Rover (Director David Michôd), Lore (Director Cate Shortland), Laid, comedy series, Animal Kingdom (Director David Michôd), The Home Song Stories (Director Tony Ayres), Little Fish (Director Rowan Woods), Jewboy (Director Tony Krawitz) and Walking on Water, (Director Tony Ayres).
Liz’s other Executive Producer credits include The Kettering Incident (TV series with Elizabeth Debicki), Jasper Jones (Director Rachel Perkins) and The Hunter (Director Daniel Nettheim).
Liz is a member of the Producers branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and works extensively across the industry on boards, juries and consultancies.
Kath Shelper
Kath is the producer of many celebrated films including Samson & Delilah, which won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Most recently she produced Warwick Thornton’s latest film The New Boy and Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel for SeeSaw Films. Her previous feature film Ruben Guthrie opened the 2015 Sydney Film Festival and premiered internationally at London Film Festival. Kath produced The Darkside, a hybrid documentary-drama with Warwick Thornton (2014 Berlin Film Festival), ABC TV feature documentary Tender by artist Lynette Wallworth (AACTA Award Best TV Documentary 2015) and two chapters of The Turning feature film (Tim Winton’s short stories project, Berlin Film Festival 2014), with Warwick Thornton and actress Mia Wasikowska in her directing debut. Mia and Kath also made another short film for the Madly anthology (Tribeca 2016). Kath produced Beck Cole’s debut feature Here I Am, which won Best Dramatic Feature at the 2011 Canadian ImagineNATIVE Film Festival. Kath was the President of community organisation Metro Screen for five years and she has served as a jury member for several film festivals including the Sydney Film Festival competition prize.
Jed Palmer
Jed Palmer is an Australian born award - winning composer, musician and producer.
Utilising electronics, guitar, and classical orchestration he composes intricate, textured, minimalist music with influences ranging from experimental music, noise, classical minimalism and art rock.
Jed has composed music for feature films The Royal Hotel (Dir. Kitty Green, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival 2023), the upcoming sci-fi feature Subservience (Dir. S.K Dale), Animals (Dir. Sophie Hyde, Sundance 2019) OtherLife (Dir. Ben C Lucas, MIFF 2017, SFF 2017, San Diego 2017)and The Infinite Man (Dir. Hugh Sullivan, SXSW 2014). In 2018, Jed was nominated for an AACTA award for his score for Upgrade, Leigh Whannell’s cult sci-fi action film. Jed has composed scores for feature documentaries I Used To Be Normal - A Boyband Fangirl Story (Dir. Jessica Leski, Hot Docs 2018, SFF 2018) and Ukraine Is Not A Brothel (Venice Film Festival 2014, Winner AACTA Best Documentary).
Jed has recently written music for TV series A Beginners Guide To Grief (Dir Anna Lindner, SBS, AACTA Award for Best Digital Channel or Series, 2022) and Black Snow (STAN) in collaboration with Ziggy Ramo.