Claudia Dzienny
Company co-director
An accomplished writer, director and producer, Dzienny (née Pickering)’s feature film and series projects have achieved widespread acclaim. The screen industry allows her to avoid the field of Architecture in which she holds a Masters degree - a method superior to holding her breath until she faints, which was her avoidance tactic of choice up until about age three. Kids can do that. Look it up.
But in all seriousness, Dzienny’s directorial debut Frisky, a coming-of-age comedy with a $5k budget was distributed by Madman (AUNZ)/Gravitas (ROW) and optioned by Jungle Entertainment, while off-the-wall comedy Winning Formula which she wrote and produced was distributed by Indican/Lionsgate. Recent directorial highlights include workplace comedy Resting Pitch Face (Google) starring Nakkiah Lui, the entire first season of action-packed drama podcast Wentworth: The Fall Girl (Fremantle/Audible), thrilling comedy Wanderbust (St Kilda) and the hilarious cooking buddy comedy Flawsome: Sex, Drugs and Recipes (SlapBang). Claudia was selected for ScreenAustralia’s elite inaugural TalentLA program and completed a writer, director and showrunner attachment on Nine’s dramedy Bad Mothers. She studied comedy improvisation at Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles, cut her teeth creating sketch comedy with Frothpocalypse, and won Tropfest Tropvine with a cheetah telling a dad joke.
Claudia has worked with Emma Leonard extensively over the past decade and is the founding co-director of Freshflix film festival, now in its 10th season having partnered with Australians in Film for events in Los Angeles and with Vivid Sydney for annual events at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Emma leonard
Company co-director
Leonard has been working extensively on both sides of the camera for the last two decades, although she is perhaps most recognisable to Australian audiences for playing school teachers. Surprisingly 3 seasons as Tracey Dennis in Channel Seven's hit series 800 Words and a significant stint in Summer Bay as Henri Brown, do not qualify her as an actual high school teacher, however it did get her an invite to the Logies and a listing on celebrity wiki feet.
Srsly though, Emma Leonard is a prolific actress and comedy creator. After studying filmmaking at MetroScreen and improv at Upright Citizens Brigade in LA, Emma formed comedy troupe Frothpocalypse with Claudia Dzienny to create a wealth of sketches including Cheetah Airways (Screen Aus). Their partnership evolved into Boobytrap Entertainment where Emma’s work as a writer, director and/or producer has been met with widespread festival success including her zomedy short The Followed which delighted audiences at Flickerfest 2024.
Leonard’s screen credits include playing teacher/local nudist Tracey Dennis in 7’s hit series 800 Words, Henri Brown in Home&Away and villain Catherine Himmel in the splashy US action drama series Almost Paradise, as well as appearing in Aussie classics Underbelly, Rescue Special Ops, All Saints, Ten Pound Poms and Wonderland.
A regular in Sydney’s comedy scene, Emma has performed across most improv stages, and has recently made a celebrated foray into standup. She has appeared in several winning pieces on ABC’s Gruen, as well as in Nazeem Hussain’s hilarious sketch comedy show Orange is the New Brown on 7. Emma is also a busy voice actor and can be heard on almost any Aussie commercial radio station on any day, as well as multiple audiobooks, podcasts and Netflix dubbings.
JIMMY SEARGEANT
Producer
Hailing from Sydney and now Los Angeles-based, Jimmy Seargeant has worked in the entertainment industry for the past 25 years, and most recently produced Zachary Quinto’s (Star Trek) indie feature as well as When Jeff Tried To Save The World, starring Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), Jim O’Heir (Parks & Recreation), and Maya Erskine & Anna Konkle (Pen15) and Hard Sell starring Skyler Gisondo and Katrina Bowden (30 Rock). His mum bought all the girls tiaras as birthday gifts back in first grade, a move which still gets him invited to parties to this day.