Director: Steven J Mihaljevich

Film: An Artist’s Curse

Bio: When a malevolent creature resides inside the artwork of a 10 year old girl, fate is sealed, with trauma from her childhood echoing across her life. Art and horror collide when the girl becomes a Mother and desperately tries to come to terms with her delusions and the shocking truth of her daughter.

Steven is a Perth filmmaker with a background in education, media, and film. Steven has produced, directed, written and edited two feature films: The Xrossing in 2020, which had it’s international premiere at the St Louis International Film Festival, and earned several awards including best feature at Toronto Independent Film Festival. The Xrossing was distributed theatrically by Halo Films with worldwide online distribution through Freestyle Digital Media.

Steven’s second feature film, the WA psychodrama, Violett, has recently been picked up by Syndicado for worldwide distribution after the film won Best Australian Feature Film and Best Australian Actress (Georgia Eyers) at the A Night of Horror Sydney International Film Festival. Violett was also awarded Best Narrative Feature (under 1 mill) and Best Performance (under 18) recently at the WA Screen Culture Awards.

As writer, director, editor, producer and co-composer of Violett, Steven also earned several other International awards including
Best Director at the London Film Awards, best composer, best editing and best feature film at the Crown Wood International Film Festival.

Both The Xrossing and Violett were produced by Steven’s production company, Playtime Motion Pictures; a boutique media production house that has been responsible for numerous short films and music video productions in collaboration with Australia’s Got Talent finalists such as Sisters Doll and Jonny Taylor.

Before Steven made his first feature film, he worked for nearly ten years in education as a Specialist Performing Arts Drama teacher, coordinating specialist & academy drama programs across Hampton Senior High School and Joseph Banks Secondary College.

As a teacher, Steven developed extensive theatre productions, working with students and professionals on shows to create enriching experiences for students. Steven also taught ATAR MPA; Media Production and Analysis and ATAR Drama Studies.

Steven brings an extended breadth of experience into his filmmaking, with an extensive history of film editing, music production, sound editing and acting/performance coaching. He is passionate about crafting thematic stories that strike a balance of confrontation, education, engagement and style.