08/12/2025
Happy 20th Birthday to Urtext Films!
On this day in 2005, I walked into the Australian Securities & Investments Commission on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, Australia, filed a Form 201, and founded Urtext Film Productions.
As a part-time-video-store-clerk and law-school-dropout, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. What occurred was a two decade long journey from Adelaide to New York, with three feature documentaries under the belt. With Rosie joining me a year into the journey, we've had a lifetime of adventures. Highs and lows, successes and missteps. We've seen and told stories from around the world - from the Steppes of Mongolia, to the mountaintops of Romania. From the bustling streets of Tokyo, to Delaware.
We started out clueless, assuming the path to success would be lightning quick. After years of struggle and failures, we realized we'd have to freelance to pay the bills and get our films made. Our first paid job was filming a conference on fish packaging. This month, our two main clients are Google and Microsoft.
We've always been stubbornly independent; it runs the risk of making this a very lonely enterprise, with a lot of solitude between the red carpet walks. So perhaps the thing I'm most proud of these last few years is how Rosie and I have turned this caper into something actually sustainable - mentally, financially, and creatively.
I often think what that idealistic fool in 2005 would think about where we are now. It can sometimes be hard to see a lifetime's worth of work from a wide-angle perspective. We've certainly had some peak moments - selling a film to Netflix, releasing two of our films in cinemas, being selected in over 75 film festivals.
But from where I stand now, I think the most outstanding achievement over a 20 year career is simply that we're still here, somehow surviving. Still learning, and still paying the bills.
Here's to the next 20 years!
- Matt
