Breathless Films is creating FEATURE FILMS that challenge the way cinema is created in Australia and abroad. We believe that the best art comes from limitation and necessity.
Responding to a lack of support for independent and emerging filmmakers in Australia, Breathless Films is establishing a sustainable film production ecosystem as a platform for a new wave of micro-budget feature films. It is our aim to support, unashamedly, contemporary film auteurs who are telling bold and uncompromising Australian stories.
Producers and founders Ulysses Oliver and Ben Ferris believe that with current lower-cost technologies and distribution platforms there is the opportunity, now as never before, to merge creative risk-taking with commercial viability.
Breathless Films aims to foster a diverse community of Sydney filmmakers from their Newtown studio, by providing facilities and resources, sharing skills and experience, connecting to industry networks, and offering much-needed cash budgets.
Ulysses Oliver
ULYSSES OLIVER has over 20 years experience in development of media productions, as the managing director and founder of Select Field. He founded and curated the Sandfly Film Festival taking international shorts to screens in Sydney and regional NSW and across the world with screenings in Paris, New York, LA and Bogata. He has managed complex production projects with large teams both in Australia and Internationally and has a proven record of accomplishment in delivering successful multimedia solutions. In 2008 Ulysses completed a Diploma of Film at the Sydney Film School where he went to be an integral part of the Sydney Film School Advisory Board. Since then he has been writing, directing and producing short films, music videos, documentaries and feature films. He produced the multi award-winning short film, Amanecer (2009) which has been selected for numerous international festivals and Australian short, and The Telegram Man (2011) starring Jack Thompson, which received an honourable mention at the Oscars. He wrote the feature film The Perfect Weapon (2016) starring Steven Seagal.
Ben Ferris
BEN FERRIS is one of Australia’s most respected experts in education for the screen and media sector, and is a passionate champion of the arts. He founded the UBS Film School at the University of Sydney in 2001, and the world-renowned Sydney Film School in 2004, built around the core values of Courage, Curiosity and Compassion. As its Director for fourteen years he has produced 1000+ alumni who work in the film industry in more than 40 countries worldwide, and 1000+ student short films that have been screened in hundreds of film festivals worldwide, including 20 Academy-Accredited festival screenings. Mr Ferris is also an internationally critically acclaimed film producer in his own right, producing the feature films Three Blind Mice (2008), Penelope (2009), and the acclaimed documentaries 57 Lawson (2016), and In(di)visible (2020). He is a current board director of the Documentary Australia Foundation.
Paul Struthers
PAUL STRUTHERS originally hails from the United Kingdom, where he received a Bachelor of Arts from Royal Holloway University of London. He has more than 15 years of experience, serving in a multitude of industry roles in the UK and on the film festival circuit in Australia. Struthers was the Festival Director for the Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival from 2014-2017 and Queer Screen Film Fest from 2014-2016, where his vision lead festival attendance to increase three-fold, and ushered in programming that explored a broader representation of queer lives. Simultaneously Struthers worked in marketing for the Sydney Film Festival, where attendance doubled, partially due to his instinctive, targeted campaigns around individual film programs. Prior to Struther’s festival career, he worked in London for 5 years in distribution, exhibition, and film sales, including positions with Revolver Entertainment and Renaissance Films.
Julian Oliver
JULIAN OLIVER is a Sound Designer, Composer and Recordist based in Sydney, Australia. Active since 2018, Julian has worked on over a dozen productions short film, feature film and music video projects within Australia and has recently completed work as sound designer and recordist on a five feature film slate for Breathless Films as well as composer for one of these films, a romantic drama, Love Road. Julian is attached as Sound Recordist and Designer on Breathless Films’ 2022 slate of films. Julian is also an accomplished musician with multiple releases out now on all major streaming platforms.