Seumas Next

Seumas Next (born Melbourne, 19 August 1968) is an Australian-born film maker presently living in London. He is the co-founder of film-production company Occidental Films and distributor Hollywood Arthouse.

Early life
Next was born in Melbourne and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia before moving to London in 1987. He left university to form the dance band the Long Time Boys, producing a Millennium track, "On the Third Stroke", featuring the voice of the Speaking Clock, Brian Cobby: the world's first 3-minute 12 inch".

During this time in London and in collaboration with Professor Mandelbrot he created a series of Fractal paintings based on Mandelbrot's Chaos Theory.

Film career
Inspired by such greats as Stanley Kubrick and John Hughes (his favourite films include A Clockwork Orange and Weird Science), Next began writing screenplays with his school friend Stephan Kern and they set up their production company, Occidental Films, and a distribution company, Hollywood Arthouse.

After producing a series of short-form art films in London between 1992 and 1996, they wrote and co-directed their debut feature film, Iced Lolly (1997), a film that made history by becoming the first all-digital feature film when it was projected straight from a computer server before an audience of 600 in Adelaide on 15 March 2003.

In 2004 they directed their debut feature documentary Mullets and Bars, exploring American stereotypes and starring John Washington VII (the ancestral nephew of George Washington). Mullets and Bars was nominated for best documentary at its premiere at the thirteenth Raindance Film Festival in London in October 2005.

Mullets and Bars was planned to be the world's first animated feature documentary but the conversion costs proved prohibitive.

In 2007 Next, Kern, and Mark Wilenkin began production on How to Make a Film which they have billed as "the world’s first instructional feature film", starring the world's foremost film-makers and gurus, (including Elliot Grove, Dov S S Simens, Syd Field, Chris Jones, John Truby, Mike Figgis, Irvine Welsh, John Landis, Sandra Hebron, Lord David Puttnam, Alki David and Jan Harlan amongst others). How to Make a Film will be released in early 2011.

In 2009 they produced Henry the 9, a controversial film that depicted the assassination of the British Royal Family and Prime Minister in a terrorist attack that only Prince Harry survived. Prince Harry (real name Henry) is crowned King Henry IX and, suspending parliament, takes absolute control.

A rough-cut of Henry the 9 previewed at the Covent Garden Hotel in London on 24 June 2009, the 500th Anniversary of Henry VIII's Coronation. Seumas dedicated the film to his great uncle Henry Norris, beheaded by Henry VIII for his alleged affair with Anne Boleyn.