The Australian Director’s Guild (ADG) will hold a one-day conference in Sydney next month for directors and industry members.
Carrying the theme of Cutting Through The Noise, Director’s Cut will feature panels exploring the director’s role in a changed streaming landscape and how emerging directors can bridge the gap to paid work.
Delegates will also hear from internationally successful directors about opportunities outside Australia and have the opportunity to discuss the value of impact strategies for both unscripted and scripted productions, while also getting updates on their rights and representation.
Other topics for the event range from looking at how sets can be made more sustainable and ensuring that they are a safe space for diverse cast and crew to how directors can work with funding agencies, networks, and streamers.
Leading Australian director, Cate Shortland (Black Widow) is the ADG’s guest for First-Hand, an in-depth conversation that will delve into her work in Australia and overseas.
Other speakers include ADG president Rowan Woods, Matt Moore, Shawn Seet, Partho Sen-Gupta, Katrina Irawati Graham, Monica Zanetti, and Tin Pang with more to be confirmed over the coming weeks.
ADG executive director Alaric McAusland said the event was aimed at “recentering the director’s voice and underscoring their leadership and significant creative contributions to today’s screen industry”.
“It’s been several years since we staged a conference and post-covid there is an enormous appetite for our members to connect with each other and across the industry, this was recently evidenced with our 2021 annual awards oversubscribed three times over last December,” he said.
“Our reimagined conference will be a truly unique opportunity for Australian directors to hear directly from key industry stakeholder and their director colleagues as they deep dive into the current trends and issues facing directors working in Australia and internationally.”
Included in the ticket prices will be a webinar, to be held later in the year, which is a collaboration with Screen Well. The webinar will look at the ways in which a director can assist with the wellbeing of their crew/cast and how to manage work/life balance.
Director’s Cut will be held in-person at SUNSTUDIOS in Alexandria on August 20 with an accompanying live stream.
The conference program will head to Western Sydney before touring nationally over the next 12 months.
Find out more information here.