Sam Lara and Cathy Henkel’s assisted dying documentary Laura‘s Choice and Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe’s sports biopic Phil Liggett: The Voice of Cycling will form part of the Australian International Documentary Conference’s (AIDC) public access program.
The Australian films will be shown alongside international titles such as 76 Days (Hao Wu, Anonymous, and Weixi Chen), Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead, David France’s Welcome to Chechnya, and Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott’s The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel in this year’s new non-fiction section. Johnson and France, keynote speakers at this year’s conference, will participate in conversation following the screening of their films.
Running from February 28 until March 11 at Melbourne’s ACMI the schedule also includes screenings of Days Of Cannibalism, Collective, The Painter And The Thief, MLK/FBI, Cunningham 3D, The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, Jia Zhangke’s Swimming Out Till The Sea Turns Blue and winner of the Special Jury Prize for Cinematography at Sundance Acasa, My Home.
Laura’s Choice explores the family experience of three generations of women coming to terms with a radical approach to dying and was pitched as part of AIDC’s FACTory Pitch program.
AIDC CEO and conference director Alice Burgin said the curated selection of screenings, Q&As, and talks in the program allowed for audiences to be “part of the conversation” surrounding new documentary work.
Also open to the general public is the Ear Hustle: Creating Community Beyond Bars event, in which the creators of the podcast Ear Hustle will be part of a live discussion and Q&A session.
Click here to view the full program and ticket information.