Our festival
28 November – 1 December, 2023
Location: State Library of New South Wales
Be inspired when Macquarie University’s Creative Documentary Research Centre (CDRC) brings together doco-makers and industry professionals, academics and the public to explore the power of today’s creative documentary forms.
Held over four days from Tuesday 28 November to Friday 1 December, at the State Library of New South Wales, you will have the opportunity to engage in a comprehensive program of screenings, workshops, and panels designed to consider challenging contemporary ideas. These include: documenting Australian natural history during this time of climate crisis, conducting oral history and documentary histories, and the art of documentary practice itself.
So, join any one of these twenty-plus conversations and connect with a community of creative minds passionate about the documentary arts.
Day 1: Tuesday 28 November
Creative documentary: Strengths and challenges
Session 1: 10am – 12.30pm
Postgraduate creative documentary community and screen challenge
The 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:
- an introduction to the CDRC and the broader community of documentary-based post-graduate scholars
- 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).
Attendance for this session is by invitation only.
Session 2: 12.30pm – 1.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Lunchtime micro screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 3: 1.15pm – 3.45pm
Creative documentary futures forum
This CDRC-chaired 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.
Attendance for this session is by invitation only.
Session 4: 4.15pm – 6.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Best documentary screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 5: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Screenings with the filmmakers: The Skin of Others directed by Tom Murray
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.
Day 2: Wednesday 29 November
Stories and histories
Session 1: 10am – 12.30pm
Collecting oral history workshop
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.
Session 2: 12.30pm – 1.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Lunchtime micro screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 3: 1.15pm – 2.45pm
What is self-narrative? Text and beyond
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.
Session 4: 3.00pm – 4.30pm
Indigenising the historical narrative
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.
Session 5: 4.45pm – 6.15pm
History on screen
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.
Session 6: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Screenings with the filmmakers: Ablaze directed by Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus
Award winning director and CDRC member Dr Alec Morgan presents his acclaimed documentary Ablaze (directed by 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.
Day 3: Thursday 30 November
Culture, nature and climate crisis
Session 1: 10am – 12.30pm
Drawing the world: Drawing to discover workshop
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 panelists 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.
Session 2: 12.30pm – 1.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Lunchtime micro screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 3: 1.15pm – 2.45pm
Virtual reality documentary
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.
Session 4: 3.00pm – 4.30pm
Nature documentary in the age of climate crisis
In this panel two of Australia’s leading natural history and nature documentary practitioners, Jen Peedom and Nick Robinson, discuss their body of screen-works. What makes for a great nature documentary, and how do these 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.
Session 5: 4.45pm – 6.30pm
Screenings with the filmmakers: Mountain directed by Jennifer Peedom
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.
Session 6: 6.45pm – 8.30pm
Screenings with the filmmakers: Australia’s Ocean Odyssey directed by Nick Robinson (cultural screening)
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.
Day 4: Friday 1 December
Families, fakes and documentary forms
Session 1: 10am – 12.30pm
Storytelling on the Ground workshop
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.
Session 2: 12.30pm – 1.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Lunchtime micro screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 3: 1.15pm – 2.45pm
Deepfake
The world of deepfakes 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. 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.
Session 4: 3.00pm – 4.30pm
Documentary as experiment and speculation
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.
Session 5: 4.45pm – 6.15pm
Black Snapper presents: Best of fest screenings
A series of curated screenings from the Black Snapper International Film Festival.
Session 6: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Black Snapper awards ceremony
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 75 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. Learn more about the Black Snapper gala.