Matt Vesely

Matthew Vesely is an Australian filmmaker, best known for his 2022 feature film Monolith. His other work includes the web series Wastelander Panda and the short films My Best Friend Is Stuck on the Ceiling (2015) and System Error (2020). He works as development manager at Closer Productions. He has also performed some small acting roles, and at least once performed as a stand-up comic.

Early life and education Matthew Vesely grew up in Adelaide, South Australia.

For high school, he attended Scotch College in Adelaide, graduating in 2004. He graduated from Flinders University with a Bachelor in Creative Arts in 2007.

Career Vesely's career started with making a number of low-budget short films, including the comedy Better Late Than Never, the documentary Street's Press, and the 2009 drama A Load Of Buckshot. In 2009, He took part in the South Australian Film Corporation's inaugural FilmLab Development Workshop. which was produced by Kirsty Stark and produced by Epic Films in Adelaide. The series reached a global audience, was featured on the front page of BuzzFeed, io9, Gizmodo, and Neatorama, and invited comparisons with Mad Max, The Road and The Book of Eli. After being posted online, within three days the series was viewed over 100,000 times in 150 countries. The project was then given federal funding for a six-part online series.

He has worked with Closer Productions for many years, which starred Tom Ward and Erin James, and the voice of Canadian comedian Nick Nemeroff. Written, directed, and co-edited by Vesely, the film premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival in 2015, had its international premiere at Palm Springs International ShortFest, and was also screened at the Melbourne, Sydney, Flickerfest, and St Kilda Film Festivals, touring for 18 months in all.

Also through Closer, Vesely was a writer and script producer It was hosted by DUST, which made it available on their YouTube channel in March 2021. Vesely described System Error as "a sort of pilot for a series we're working on called Overheater, which is a dystopian romantic comedy about a love triangle between an anxious young woman, a reckless man with a deathwish, and... George".

Vesely's first feature film, the sci-fi thriller Monolith, featuring a single on-screen actor, Lily Sullivan, was selected to have its international premiere at SXSW in 2023, after a screening at the 2022 Adelaide Film Festival. It also screened at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival and Sitges Film Festival. It was well-reviewed by respected Australian film critic David Stratton, as well as in The New York Times, The Guardian, and by other reviewers. It was released in cinemas in the Australia and New Zealand in 2023, and the US in 2024. Vesely was interviewed on RogerEbert.com about the film ahead of the US release.

He has been working with Garth Davis and See-Saw Films as a screenwriter on a TV adaptation of French graphic novel by Léo Quievreux published in English as The Immersion Program. In April 2022, Screen Australia announced funding the science fiction drama TV series Immersion, to be written by Vesely, directed by Davis, and executive produced by Emile Sherman and Samantha Lang.

he was also working on developing another film with his Monolith team (Lucy Campbell, writer, and Bettina Hamilton, producer), and a solo project, writing a script for a "kind of Lovecraftian cult film". The trio were featured in an article entitled "Behind the screens: Meet 14 next generation South Australian filmmakers" in The Advertiser in December 2024, saying that the South Australian screen industry had increased its activity to a level not seen since the 1970s.

Other activities Vesely has also performed as a stand-up comic. In 2019, he performed a show at the Adelaide Film Festival, called "Matt Vesely and George The Robot Perform a Very Normal Stand Up Comedy Routine", which won good reviews.

In 2020, he appeared in minor role in the feature film A Sunburnt Christmas.

He wrote an essay about the technical and other aspects of working with an inanimate object in a film, based on his experiences with System Error, for the filmmaking website No Film School.

Vesely was one of three judges on the Shorts Award Jury in the 2025 Adelaide Film Festival, with Manda Flett and Isaac Coen Lindsay.

Accolades 2012: Winner, Best Music Video, SA Screen Awards 2016: Winner, Best Comedy and Best Screenplay, South Australian Screen Awards, for My Best Friend Is Stuck on the Ceiling 2023: Listed on IF Magazine'''s "Rising Talent list" (sponsored by AFTRS) 2023: Nominated, ADG Awards, "Best Direction in a Debut Feature Film" category 2024: Nominated, AACTA Award for Best Indie Film (Monolith) 2024: Recipient (along with Aaron Fa'aoso and four others) of the Talent Gateway program, a joint initiative of Screen Australia and Australians in Film, which aims to help emerging filmmakers to develop their skills and forge connections, in order to succeed further in the international market 2024: One of ten filmmakers selected for the "Adelaide Film Festival goes to Cannes" initiative 2024: Winner, Best Feature Film in the SA Screen Awards (Monolith'')