Screen Australia has announced $2 million in production funding for 11 documentary projects, seven through the Documentary Producer Program and four through the Commissioned Program.
Female directors have taken the lion's share of nominations for this year's Australian Directors' Guild awards, with Sian Davies and Stef Smith each securing three nods and their counterparts dominating the feature film categories.
In recent years we have seen a radical shake out in the old television broadcast model, writes veteran documentary filmmaker Tom Zubrycki. In this extract from his new Platform Paper, he asks what place will documentary have in this new factual environment.
When Tom Zubrycki set out five years ago to make a feature documentary on a South Sudan refugee in Sydney who returns to his village to build a school, he had no idea how the story would unfold.
Former Sydney Film Festival, Australian Film Institute, SBS and ABC executive Rod Webb died on Friday after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76.
It's taken five years but the makers of Stolen feel their documentary's revelations of slavery in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria controlled by the Polisario Front have been vindicated.
Wanja, written and directed by Angie Abdilla and produced by Tom Zubrycki, has been selected for competition at IDFA (International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam).
The challenges of making observational documentaries in Australia can be so daunting that some filmmakers may be afraid of tackling that genre.