Stephen Aspeling

About

I wanted to be a movie critic from my days at Kingswood College in Grahamstown, where I achieved Academic Honours for Art and English. The pursuit fascinated me enough to complete a Film, Media & Visual Studies orientated B.A. degree at UCT.After a B.Tech at Cape Technikon and a deferred M.Tech in Business Information Systems at CPUT I was hired as a copywriter for an online gaming company. A year later, I continued my role in a freelance capacity in order to start writing a review a day for a year to kickstart my movie blog, SPL!NG.Over the last two decades, I've accumulated a great deal of experience across a number of media platforms......reviewed film on SPL!NG, which has been running since 2007. Over this time, I've also written film reviews and/or articles for Indiewire, 2Oceansvibe.com, Techsmart magazine, Weekend Post, The Herald, All4Women, Vibescout, Cape Town Creatives, Willow & Thatch, Showmax and The Plum List. ...reviewed film on air for 702, CapeTalk, Chai FM, 2Oceansvibe Radio, MFM and presented over 550 consecutive weekly episodes of 'Talking Movies' on Fine Music Radio over 10+ years. ...served as a judge, juror, panelist and/or guest speaker for SAFTAs, AFDA, SAE, Adventure Film Challenge, SA's Oscar Selection Committee, Afterlife Festival, Film o'Clock, El Gouna Film Festival and the 48 Hour Film Project. ...founded script consultancy reviewmyscript.com in 2019 and consulted on many film projects from first draft to first cut over the years, including SA's Best International Feature representative for the Academy Awards....hosted and introduced 'Movie Buffs' screenings for Ster-Kinekor, 'Bingeing with Spling' online watch parties and preview screenings for Empire Entertainment....started to write and co-write short film and feature film screenplays with a view to producing and/or directing. ...published 'The Essence of Dreams: An Anthology of Film Reviews'....been a member of FIPRESCI, WGSA and the founding member of FCASA.