Industry Report - by Jan Beach
ozdox - The Australian Documentary Forum
Following the recent Australian International Documentary Conference, many documentary filmmakers felt the need to get together more often and to establish a regular forum to foster, promote and share documentary culture. This "grass roots" initiative has received a lot of interest from producers, directors, students and others working in the world of documentary, who simply want an environment in which to meet each other and discuss ideas. This has culminated in the formation of Ozdox - The Australian Documentary Forum, which has been supported by ASDA, AFTRS, UTS with other organizations now also expressing interest and support.
In the Australian Film Industry, Documentary filmmakers are represented by SADC, (SPAA/ASDA Documentary Committee - SPAA is Screen Producers Association of Australia, ASDA - Australian Screen Directors Association) as a lobbying body on political issues, which effect the documentary industry. Many of those on the organizing committee of Ozdox are ASDA members and issues raised at Ozdox will be fed back to ASDA and SADAC to keep communication flowing from the filmmakers to the industry bodies. See http://www.asdafilm.org.au/ for more information.
SPAA and ASDA formed the joint SPAA/ASDA Documentary Council (SADC) to provide an effective independent voice for the Documentary sector to Government and the wider industry. The SADC comprises of two representatives from each organisation. It is documentary producers and directors working together to promote documentary production and distribution.
Ozdox will be a monthly forum with the aim of:
Each event will be co-ordinated by one or more of the organisers depending upon their area of interest. Anyone wanting to participate or show work should contact Ozdox in advance.
As it is a non profit organisation, sponsored by AFTRS, UTS and (Macquarie University pending) with AFC providing the venue, and ASDA providing infrastructural support, admission is essentially free although a gold coin donation is encouraged and further contributions would obviously be welcomed.
The Ozdox launch event in August which featured DVD producers entitled "DVD Production for Independent Filmmakers" proved to be a huge success overfilling the 80 seat theatre.
The website is in its early days and we intend to further develop it to include an announcements page open to all and an online forum for people to communicate on various topics. Presently, there is a 'News' and also a 'Links' section to which people may send their information.
Ozdox is brought to you by a volunteer programming committee who are:
Martha Ansara - Independent Documentary Filmmaker
Maree Delofski - Lecturer at Macquarie University
Pat Fiske - Co-Head of Documentary dept at AFTRS
Sarah Gibson - Senior Lecturer at UTS
Mitzi Goldman - Co-Head of Documentary dept at AFTRS
Adrian Herring - Independent Producer
Mandy King - Independent Producer
Gillian Leahy - Senior Lecturer at UTS
Michael Ney - Filmmaker, Multimedia Producer
Isabel Perez - Independent Producer
Jane Roscoe - Head of Screen Studies at AFTRS
NOTE: All are filmmakers in their own right as well.
Excerpt from an interview with Michael Ney, Aug 2003
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