University of Canberra’s short film screened at Australia’s largest film festival

A short film created by University of Canberra students during their studies was selected for showing at the recent 2023 St Kilda Film Festival, one of Australia’s top short film competitions.

The film – CAPTCHA ­– was shot predominantly on campus in 2021 by producer Lachlan Kendall, director Matthew Francis, and production designer Jean Pang. This process followed the planning phase of the production which was conceptualised during their time in The Creative Producer unit.

While many of the scenes were filmed on campus, other notable Canberra locations appear in the film, including Lake Burley Griffin and the greenhouses at CIT Bruce.

It was presented at the festival earlier this month, with the team of three travelling to Melbourne to participate in the competition.

Mr Kendall described the film as shot in a “hypnotic style set in a weird test facility’”.

“It follows a test subject going through a number of strange stimulus and response tests to see whether it’s human or not,” Kendall said.

“We kind of expand on the idea of seeing whether the audience can feel empathy for this emotionless character.”



The winning film of the St Kilda Film Festival is eligible to be nominated for an Oscar in the short film category.

Of the hundreds of films in the festival, a handful became finalists – unfortunately CAPTCHA didn’t make the cut, but Mr Kendall said the team were “more than happy” with how far they had come.

He said the team were grateful for the knowledge and skills the University had provided them, which help them make the film.

“We also used a lot of University resources, we had access to certain buildings and most of the equipment we used was for free through the Media Resource Centre,” Mr Kendall said.

While the team members who worked on the film have now graduated, they do plan on continuing their passion for filmmaking into the future.

Mr Kendall and his wife Sofia – a Bachelor of Science in Psychology student at the University – own and operate a production company called Postglacial, and are working on a psychological thriller drawing on Mrs Goncharova’s knowledge of the industry.

“We’re trying to incorporate a lot of those psychological principles into our next film,” Mr Kendall said.

“I think it’s a good blend, a team with someone who does film and someone that does psychology.”