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TUESDAY 28TH NOVEMBER
CREATIVE DOCUMENTARY: STRENGTHS AND CHALLENGES
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Session 1: Post-Grad Creative Documentary Community & Screen Challenge (invitational)
10am – 12:30pm
Macquarie University's Creative Documentary Research Centre (CDRC) invites post-graduate scholars to a workshop designed to strengthen the research community of higher degree documentary-based practitioners. This workshop will have two components: (1) an introduction to the CDRC and the broader community of documentary-based post-graduate scholars; (2) A documentary-making challenge that employs selected images from the State Library of NSW photo archives in a Post Graduate Screen Challenge (competition details and prizes described on the day, with winners announced on the closing night, Friday, December 1, at the Black Snapper Festival Awards).
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Panel Chairs: Professor Tom Murray, Associate Professor Karen Pearlman
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Session 2: Black Snapper Presents: Lunchtime Micro Screenings
12:30pm - 1:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 3: Creative Documentary Futures Forum (invitational)
1:15pm - 3:45pm
A forum chaired by Macquarie University's Creative Documentary Research Centre (CDRC). This forum will bring together diverse expertise from the documentary industry to inquire into creativity in the sector, asking: How do we maintain and expand creativity in documentary?
The forum brings a range of perspectives to the table, with speakers spanning the domains of academia, the GLAM sector, festivals, filmmakers, and government. The forum will conclude with a discussion
designed to develop recommendations to sector stakeholders and government on building a more diverse and creative documentary sector.
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Panel Chairs: Professor Tom Murray, Associate Professor Karen Pearlman
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FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT
Session 4: Black Snapper Presents: Best Documentary Screenings
4:15pm - 6:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 5: Screenings with the Filmmakers: The Skin of Others
(Tom Murray)
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Indigenous historian Professor John Maynard and CDRC Director Professor Tom Murray present Murray's award-winning film The Skin Of Others.This documentary explores the remarkable life of Indigenous activist and World War I veteran Douglas Grant.
Featuring the late great artist-performers Balang T.E Lewis (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith) and Uncle Archie Roach, this portrayal of Douglas Grant offers a poignant and timely insight into the challenges facing
Indigenous activists and the ongoing battle for truth-telling and open-hearted reflection on the legacy of colonialism in Australia.
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WEDNESDAY 29TH NOVEMBER
STORIES AND HISTORIES
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Session 1: Collecting Oral History (Workshop)
10am – 12:30pm
In this session leading oral and public historians discuss the practices, challenges and solutions involved in collecting oral history. The session will be followed by a practical workshop designed to develop and expand oral history collection skills that will be of benefit to anyone interested in the craft and practice of oral history.
Panel Chair: Professor Tanya Evans
Panellists: Maria Savvidis, Rod Freedman
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Session 2: Black Snapper Presents: Lunchtime Micro Screenings
12:30pm - 1:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 3: What is Self-Narrative? Text and Beyond
1:15pm – 2:45pm
This session takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the task of self-narration across the expressive domains of writing, drawing, photography, and dance/performance. Thinking through the capacities of various media to communicate to others the lived and embodied experience of self, this panel will offer thought-provoking insights drawn from diverse narrative practices.
Panel Chair: Dr Regina Fabry
Panellists: Dr Jane Simon, Dr Julie-Anne Long, Dr Vanessa Berry
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Session 4: Indigenising the Historical Narrative
3pm – 4:30pm
In this panel leading Indigenous storytellers explain their unique approaches to documenting the histories and cultures of this continent now called Australia.
From a First Nations perspective the panel will unpack and describe some of the ways in which Indigenous approaches to the past challenge colonial methods and narratives of Australian history. It will also offer insights into contemporary truth-telling and to Indigenous narrative practices that long predate colonial occupation.
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Panel Chair: Pauline Clague
Panellists: Blak Douglas, Gillian Moody
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Session 5: History on Screen
4:45pm – 6:15pm
Leading history practitioners and scholars on this panel will describe what is unique to history-telling on screen. How does history told in a screen documentary form differ from traditional (written) text-based history works - and what do these differences tell us about both screen history and about history-telling more generally? A fascinating conversation about the potential and inherent challenges to screen history-telling.
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Panel Chair: Professor Michelle Arrow
Panellists: Professor Rachel Landers, Dr Alec Morgan
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Session 6: Screenings with the Filmmakers: Ablaze (Alec Morgan)
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Award winning director and CDRC member Dr Alec Morgan presents his acclaimed documentary Ablaze (Dir: Tiriki Onus and Alec Morgan) about the life of entrepreneur, impresario, entertainer, filmmaker and activist Bill Onus.
Told through the investigative journey of Bill’s grandson, the opera singer, performer, writer, and scholar Tiriki Onus, this is a compelling untold story of activism, resistance and politically driven art-making. It is also a disturbing tale of state surveillance and intimidation, and a remarkable film about the passionate and inspiring life of Bill Onus, Australia’s first Aboriginal filmmaker.
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Special Guest: Indigenous historian Professor John Maynard
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THURSDAY 30TH NOVEMBER
CULTURE, NATURE, AND CLIMATE CRISIS
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Session 1: Drawing the World: Documentary and Discovery (Workshop)
10am – 12:30pm
Drawing is an ancient and powerful form of documentary making. From the cave paintings of France, Arnhem Land, or Sulawesi, to the work of artists, architects and scholars today, humans have been drawing and making sense of their environments for at least 45,000 years.
Through the personal practices of our esteemed panellists we will hear how drawing has formed an indispensable part of their sense and world-making, and has subsequently informed their art and their knowledge of the world.
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Presented in conjunction with MQ Art Gallery
Panel Chair: Dr Anna Madeleine Raupach
Panellists: Anthony Cahill, Nathalie Hartog-Gautier, Richard Leplastrier
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Session 2: Black Snapper Presents: Lunchtime Micro Screenings
12:30pm - 1:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 3: Virtual Reality Documentary
1:15pm – 2:45pm
Virtual Reality and 360-degree imaging is transforming the ways we can engage, understand, and express our relationships to-, with-, and, in-the-world. In this session leading VR practitioners and thinkers offer insights into their cutting-edge practices, and describe some of the risks, challenges and benefits of working in this exciting new 360-degree medium.
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Panel Chair: Associate Professor Marcus Carter
Panellists: Dr Greg Ferris, Bobbi-Lea Dionysius
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Session 4: Nature Documentary in the Age of Climate Crisis
3pm – 4:30pm
In this panel, Jen Peedom and Stephen Oliver, two of Australia’s leading figures in natural history and nature documentaries, come together to discuss their acclaimed body of work, both as creators and commissioners. What makes for a great nature documentary, and how do filmmakers address the most urgent environmental issue of today? Sharing their experiences of documenting ecosystems subject to rapid climate change, this panel reflects on the role of documentary in this age of climate crisis.
Panel Chair: Associate Professor Robert Sinnerbrink
Panellists: Stephen Oliver, Jen Peedom,
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Session 5: Screenings with the Filmmakers: Mountain (Jen Peedom)
4.45pm - 6.30pm
Screening of Jennifer Peedom's documentary Mountain, the highest grossing Australian documentary in box office history. Peedom and the Australian Chamber Orchestra join forces in a cinematic and musical collaboration that delves into humanity's enduring fascination with elevated landscapes. The film is sparingly narrated by Willem Dafoe.
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Session 6: Screenings with the Filmmakers: Australia’s Ocean
Odyssey (Cultural Screening) (Nick Robinson)
6:45pm - 8:30pm
ABC's Manager of Documentaries Stephen Oliver and Nick Robinson present Australia's Ocean Odyssey. This documentary reveals the marine arteries and veins of planet Earth - a life support system that has helped regulate the Earth’s climate, atmosphere and biological diversity for millions of years. Following the East Australian Current from the Great Barrier Reef south to Tasmania, we witness how these planetary systems impact and transform the living systems we all rely upon.
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FRIDAY 1ST DECEMBER
FAMILIES, FAKES, AND DOCUMENTARY FORMS
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Session 1: Storytelling on the ground (Workshop)
10am - 12:30pm
This panel and workshop offers a multi-disciplinary approach to documenting communities and families. What are the unique challenges and benefits of documenting families and communities, including your own?
In this panel and workshop leading screen storytellers and scholars explain their own personal commitments and experiences working in this area, and offer some hands-on exercises designed to build skills in this fascinating documentary field.
Panellists: Dr Nicole Matthews, Jeni Thornley
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Session 2: Black Snapper Presents: Lunchtime Micro Screenings
12:30pm - 1:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 3: Deep Fake
1:15pm – 2:45pm
The world of deep fakes is fast evolving, anxiety provoking, and offers fascinating capacities to disrupt current documentary practices. In this session award-winning screen-makers describe how and why they are applying this new technology to their screen narratives.
And scholarly experts in the field of media and ethics discuss how deepfake media interventions challenge notions of documentary authenticity, evidence, and reality. In an era awash with misinformation, deepfakes are providing a challenge to audiences and media makers alike.
Panel Chair: Dr Sacha Molitorisz
Panellists: Associate Professor Craig Hight, Dr Anna Broinowski,
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Session 4: Documentary as Experiment and Speculation
3pm– 4:30pm
For documentary-makers some areas will always be inaccessible to cameras and data-collecting devices. But it doesn’t mean they are forever unknowable. What happens if we set up an experiment to find out what happens in a jury room, or we use actors to investigate and speculate on the lives and events of the past?
In this session we meet filmmakers and scholars doing exactly this: experimenting and speculating in order to determine what happens behind closed doors today, what may once have been … and what might yet happen.
Panel Chair: Karen Pearlman
Panellists: Aviva Ziegler, Madeleine Hetherton-Miau
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Session 5: Black Snapper Presents: Best of Fest Screenings
4:45pm – 6:15pm
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Session 6: Black Snapper Awards Ceremony
6:30pm - 8:30pm
The Black Snapper International Film Festival Awards Ceremony honours some of the best screen and audio works being made by students throughout Australia and the world.
With over 1000 submissions from over 85 countries this is Australia’s largest student screen awards event with
categories covering screen and audio fiction and documentary, animation, and with Special Jury prizes for innovation/
experimentation and for environmental/social awareness raising. This is the culminating gala event of the two-weeks long Black Snapper International Film Festival.
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Let’s start the conversation.
Keep an eye out for the latest updates and exciting additions to our festival lineup! We're constantly adding new information, so be sure to revisit our web page regularly.
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If you have any questions about this event or need further information, feel free to reach out to the CDRC team at CDRCFestival@mq.edu.au.
We look forward to connecting with you soon.
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