In episode 29 of This Week in Comedy, hosts Lily Geddes and Morry Morgan welcome filmmaker Nick Kozakis, who arrives straight from a Sooshi Mango pre-production meeting, for a lively conversation spanning film, comedy, Australian culture and the strange moments that become stories. Nick discusses his work with Sooshi Mango, music videos, commercials, short films and feature projects. He shares the excitement and pressure of helping expand the group’s comedy world into a feature film, with production scheduled from August through September and a future call-out for extras.

The centrepiece is Dilemma, Nick’s darkly comic short selected for the 2026 St Kilda Film Festival. Written by Duncan Samarsinghe and made with Anthony Littlechild and Nick’s wife Carlia, the film poses a provocative time-travel question: would you kill Hitler as a child? Nick reflects on why the compact, one-day shoot was too good to refuse, and praises performers Jackson Tozer and Eliza Matengu for their chemistry, comic timing and ability to balance a heavy premise with unsettling humour.

Nick also opens up about stunt work, armourers, safety teams, fake blood and practical horror effects. He argues that physical effects give horror a depth that audiences feel more immediately than heavily computer-generated imagery. For emerging filmmakers, he stresses networking, generosity and making concise, contained short films that festival programmers can easily schedule. He credits mentors and peers including the Cairnes brothers of Late Night with the Devil and the Philippou brothers for helping shape his filmmaking path.

The episode’s beer break features Field Trip, a 7% West Coast IPA with grapefruit, pine and “dank resin” notes. Its weed-themed can gives Lily the perfect opening to expand on her cannabis expertise, explaining trichomes, THC-rich resin and why “dank” is a useful descriptor in both beer and marijuana culture. That leads naturally into a cannabis-fuelled Funny in the Moment story involving Lily, her Hilux canopy, a hotbox experiment and a supposedly suspicious stranger who ultimately turns out to be a pole.

Elsewhere, Lily and Morry cover Kyle Sandilands’ settlement with ARN Media, Jackie O’s legal action, Multicultural Arts Victoria’s response to Pauline Hanson, Gold Logie nominees Sam Pang and Julia Morris, and Melbourne’s Defrost Festival. Comedy history brings in Moe Howard, Brian Brown, The Ed Sullivan Show, Garfield and Josh Thomas. The episode closes with Nick teasing an unannounced feature, Dilemma’s festival run in Perth, and the chance for local performers to appear as extras in the upcoming Sooshi Mango movie.

Links:

Boatrocker Field Trip West Coast IPA: Click here

Hard Knock Knocks Comedy School: Click here

Nick Kozakis' IMDB account: Click here

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