James Menelaus Rush is a writer, director and editor who lives between Melbourne and London. After leading workshops for high school students that explored the notions of self, vulnerability and empathy.

For him, cinema has the capacity to “transport the public to calmer worlds”.

His previous student short film Tadpoles saw him nominated for the 2022 Australian Director's Guild Awards after having screened at various premiere international short film festivals around the world such as Winterthur Kurzfilmtage, Flickerfest International Short Film Festival and Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival. Last year, James was invited to take part in the prestigious Locarno Film Festival's ‘Base Camp’ program. This year, James was invited to join a handful of directors in Mexico for a directing workshop run by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Lacerate is his graduation film for the London Film School. He is currently developing multiple short film projects as well as his first feature film.