About Us

Hell Is For Hyphenates is a monthly film podcast that has been running since May 2010.

The idea behind the show is this: every filmmaker is someone’s favourite. And if you’re going to dive deep into the back catalogue of a filmmaker and explore all their best-known and most-hidden works, why not employ their biggest fan as your guide?

Each month, the show greets a different guest host, including filmmakers and film critics, authors and comedians, journalists and garden variety movie lovers.

We also look back at some of the key new release films from that month debate the contentious issues of the film world, and explore the career of a filmmaker as chosen by the guest. Previous filmmakers discussed on the show have included the likes of existential legend David Lynch, renown dramatist, Claire Denis, legendary auteur Akira Kurosawa, explosions enthusiast Michael Bay, Left Bank Cinema pioneer Agnés Varda, and Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer. No filmmakers are off the table, and the hosts are subject to the whims of their guests. Opinions will be challenged, blood will be spilled, and segues will be forced!

The show is currently hosted by Rochelle Siemienowicz and Lee Zachariah, and was previously hosted by Paul Anthony Nelson and Sophie Mayer.

Sophie Mayer AvatarSophie Mayer (2015-2017) is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound and The F-Word, where she sounds off about feminist, queer and alternative cinema, and also Joss Whedon and The Hunger Games. She is the author of the books Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema and The Cinema of Sally Potter: A Politics of Love. Sophie is also the co-editor of Catechism: Poems For Pussy Riot, The Personal Is Political: Feminism and Documentary and There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond. She is part of Club des Femmes and Raising Films, and teaches film studies and creative writing wherever she can. @tr0ublemayer

Paul Anthony Nelson (2010-2015) hit Planet Earth with an astonishing lack of fanfare back in the mid 1970s. Very little is known of his life to date; his only legacy thus far, a convoluted shambles of myth, misinformation and outright lies. Here are some facts: Paul doesn’t like to be photographed by anyone over 5′ 6”, only conducts interviews in 1920s jazz hepcat parlance and considers Steven Seagal to be the most truthful exponent of method acting today. Oh, and he’s also an award-winning director, screenwriter, editor and producer, making films under the banner of his independent production company Cinema Viscera. He’s also reviewed films for ABC Gold Coast/Sunshine Coast FM in Queensland, Australia, RRR FM Melbourne’s Film Buffs Forecast and The Astor Theatre’s e-newsletter, not to mention this here podcast. Paul has 17 children, all named Frank, and donates copious funds to an adoptive home for flying monkeys. @cinemaviscera

Rochelle Siemienowicz (2017-present) is a film critic, editor and columnist with a special interest in Australian film. She has a PhD in Australian cinema and was a long-time film editor for The Big Issue and editor at the AFI | AACTA. Her work has been published widely, including in The Age, Kill Your Darlings, ScreenHub, Lumina and at SBS Movies. She is a curator and presenter on Australian movie streaming platform Ozflix and a contributing editor at Metro magazine. As the child of missionaries, Rochelle was raised in the Pacific Islands without film and television, and as a result is still trying to patch up the huge gaping holes in her knowledge of pop culture and cinema history. She has also published a memoir, Fallen (Affirm Press), which has nothing at all to do with cinema, and is currently working on a novel, which may or may not be about a lazy and distracted film critic. @Milan2Pinsk

Lee Zachariah (2010-present) is probably least known for being the co-host of film comedy TV show The Bazura Project, which ran for three seasons on Australian community TV from 2006-2008, and on ABC2 for one season in 2011. He spent eight years writing the AICN-Downunder column on US movie website Ain’t It Cool News under the pseudonym “Latauro”, and has written for Inside Film, Encore Magazine, Empire, FilmInk, Vice, The Age, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Birth. Movies. Death., The Big Issue, ArtsHub, Concrete Playground, Junkee, B&T Magazine, Metro, Spook Magazine, Onya Magazine and various other publications. He’s talked film on ABC Radio National, ABC local radio, Triple R, SYN, co-hosted the Triple R radio show Inherent Advice and moderated numerous movie Q&As. He has worked with The Chaser on ABC1’s The Hamster Wheel, The Checkout and The Hamster Decides, and written for ABC1’s Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell. He is currently a producer on Network Ten’s The Project. From 2013 to 2015 he served on the board of the Australian Film Critics Association. He is the author of the book Double Dissolution: Heartbreak and Chaos on the Campaign Trail released in October 2016 by Echo Publishing. @leezachariah

Music by Kit Sivyer

Original artwork designed by Caroline McCurdy

Sound recording duties were carried out in the early years by by Saraj Alkemade, Tim Egan, and Liam Marcon