Sue Brown

Born in Montreal, Canada, Sue Brown is a writer, director, producer, editor and actor who graduated in 1992 with a B.F.A. in Film Production from Concordia University. In that same year, Sue left her native country and moved to South Australia. She now considers the Barossa Valley home. In 1995, Sue self-financed her first short film, the award-winning suspense comedy, Snoop, that was picked up by the AFI Distribution branch. The film's success led to the South Australian Film Corporation financing her second short, the award-winning action comedy, Grunt and a half hour SBSI television documentary, Moana: A Moshumentary. At the end of 2000, Sue completed her first self-financed micro-budget feature film, Getting The Dirt on Trish, a kitchen sink comedy thriller about two feuding sisters who are forced to live together when one desperately needs to hide from a vengeful lover. The World Premiere was held at the 2001 Flickapalooza International Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Australian Film Commission supported Sue with post funds to complete the film and to attend the festival in person. Getting the Dirt on Trish went on to screen at several national and international underground film festivals and won Best Female Director at the 2001 Melbourne Underground Film Festival. Sue turned to producing horror films in 2003 under the writer/director pseudonym, Ursula Dabrowsky, and self-financed her second micro-budget feature, Family Demons. Shot in two weeks with a cash budget of $6,500, Family Demons is a psychological horror film about an abused teenage girl who murders her alcoholic mother only to discover her mother's vengeful spirit returns to haunt her. The film had its World Premiere at the 2009 A Night of Horror International Film Festival in Sydney where Ursula Dabrowsky won Best Australian Director. The film screened at numerous national and international film festivals and won Best Foreign Film and Best Actress at the Fright Night International Film Festival. It was also nominated for Best Actress for Cassandra Kane at the Eerie Horror Film Fest, won Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Kerry Reid at the 2011 Bloodfest Fantastique Horror & Sci Fi Film Festival, and was shortlisted for the 2009 DigiSPAA Competition. In 2009, IFM Films acquired distribution rights. In 2010, Sue obtained a $350,000 production investment through the SAFC's Film Lab Initiative to make her next film, Inner Demon, an abduction horror/thriller with supernatural elements. It tells the tale of a teenage girl who is abducted by a serial killer couple and manages to escape and find refuge in an isolated farmhouse, only to discover it is home to greater horrors and a malevolent spirit. Inner Demon held its World Premiere at the 2014 A Night of Horror International Film Festival and was awarded Best Australian Feature, Best Australian Director, and Best Female Performance (Sarah Jeavons). In 2015, the film screened at several overseas film festivals, including Etheria Film Night in Los Angeles, London's Film4 FrightFest Film Festival, and Sitges International Film Festival in Spain. Terror Films acquired distribution rights and released the film worldwide in mid 2017 and successfully released Inner Demon on numerous streaming platforms in 2017 including Shudder, Amazon Prime, iTunes, and Vudu. Sue is seeking an international sales agent for her next project, Ruby, Ruby. Ruby, a supernatural horror film that tells the story of two high school friends who are curious about a local urban legend and travel to a remote cemetery that is haunted by the vengeful spirit of a murdered girl, only to find themselves in a fight for their life against evils both supernatural and human. "Inner Demon is a sneaky little film that does its best to creep up on your expectations and give them a good jolt." ~ Ambush Bug, Ain't It Cool News "Dabrowsky directs the heck out of Inner Demon, not just because it keeps going despite having a small cast and what seems like some tight constraints where locations and other resources are concerned, but because she pulls off the nifty trick of making her movie into something else without missing a beat." ~ Jay Seaver, efilmcritic.com "The performance that Ursula Dabrowsky pulled out of Sarah Jeavons was flawless." ~ April Walsh, Legendary Women " Family Demons is surprisingly accomplished for such a low-budget piece, well directed." ~ Adrian Martin, The Age "Family Demons plays with the time-space continuum in that it shows very important details out of sequence. The effect is great; sort of like what was accomplished by Momento's back and forth depiction of a person slowly losing their mind." ~ Heidi Honeycutt, Pretty/Scary "With only two feature films under her belt, Dabrowsky is working towards bigger and better things and hopefully with bigger budgets and more experience, she will be making films that will shake the whole genre." ~ Christopher Stewart, UK Horror Scene