The Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) returns for its 2025 run in Naarm-Melbourne from 2-5 March at ACMI, and with it comes a decidedly appropriate theme for this year’s conference: Future Telling: New Horizons in Documentary & Factual Storytelling.
The conference features a wealth of voices who are, in their own unique ways, shifting the form and function of documentary filmmaking as we know it. Across 40 sessions, more than 115 speakers and 90 industry decision makers will each explore the future of documentary filmmaking. From Australian filmmakers and storytellers like Jennifer Peedom (Sherpa, Mountain), Gabrielle Brady (The Wolves Always Come at Night), Gabriel Shipton (Ithaka), and Marc Fennell (The Mission), to the Academy Award nominated filmmaking team behind Sugarcane, Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, to the international marketplace which occurs from 6-7 March in-person and online where media organisations and brands like ABC, Amazon Prime Video, SBS, and more will be in attendance.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFbf7ImNaS3/?img_index=1
If we lean into the term ‘future telling’ a little more, we’re invited to explore what the term ‘factual storytelling’ means in the realm of documentary filmmaking. That term has always been an aspect of AIDC, but its presence feels all the more apt as the conference takes attendees down the path of exploring the role of AI in storytelling, a notion that’s curiously explored in Piotr Winiewicz’s About a Hero, a hybrid-documentary crafted by AI that was trained on Herzog’s work. The resulting film is less an imitation of Herzog’s filmography, and more of an extension of his work, skewing towards an experience that dismantles by way of examination the role of technology in our lives.
But ‘future telling’ isn’t just about what technology filmmakers can use to tell their stories, it’s also about ensuring that the stories are being told by the right people. This is clearly evident in the work of Gabrielle Brady who returns to the hybrid documentary collaborative experience with her latest film The Wolves Always Come at Night, a stunning work of co-creation which sees Brady work alongside Mongolian producer Ariunaa Tserenpil and their subjects, Daava and Zaya, to craft a story that is true to their experience and world view.
AIDC embraces all forms of documentary and factual storytelling, from feature films to short films to TV work to podcasts. The conference has continually pushed and explored the form of storytelling with Spotlight Sessions that hold up the vessel of documentary filmmaking and peer through it like a prism, watching how the light reflects across different stories. Within the Dokpolitik Sessions, we’re invited to see how TV is being redefined in a digital age with Broadcast Horizons, while in the Stories Without Borders Sessions, Marc Fennell takes us down a journey of Factual Forecast: Invention, Innovation and Challenging Form with SBS.
AIDC exists as a conference that engages with the established voices within the field, while also giving space to the emerging storytellers, all the while exploring where the form of documentary filmmaking is heading. Helping navigate the conference into a rapidly evolving future is CEO and Creative Director Natasha Gadd.
I caught up with Natasha prior to the conference to discuss how AIDC is presenting the future of documentary and factual storytelling. I started our conversation by noting that this years conference feels like one of the biggest leaps in AIDC’s history, where the confluence of emerging talent and emerging technology is coming together in powerful, exciting, and sometimes a little unsettling, ways.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
It feels like we’re entering a new era for documentaries. It feels like there’s been a shift in the form of stories that are being told. I’ve noticed more collaborative work like The Wolves Always Come at Night, the work is more pointedly politically active like Black Box Diaries. What do you feel has been the big change in the sector?
Natasha Gadd: I think it really is sort of a new era for our sector. It's constantly evolving. It's always changing with documentary and factual storytelling being kind of grounded in reflecting our diverse realities across the world. When there's change in society, culture, politics, there's going to be change in documentary, because we're reflecting what's happening in the world around us.
I think there's been a number of things that have entered the equation. One would be the concern around mis- and disinformation and social media and propaganda; we're seeing that play out particularly in the political and geopolitical sphere, and with that, I think there's been a question, who do we trust? If there's concern that we can't really trust social media because it's so biased, we can't really trust the mainstream media or the alternative media too much, [then] everything is in question.
Documentary is not the beholder of all truth. We know that it's still a construct in its own right and it still holds enormous bias, but biases in terms of who's telling the story. It's not news and current affairs in the sense that it's not always trying to be impartial.
There's a lot happening on that cultural, political stage, but also technologically what is actually happening in terms of platforms and where people are watching is shifting, and how technology is being infused or used, whether surreptitiously or overtly, is also having an impact.
One of the Spotlight Sessions is focused on Piotr Winiewicz’s About a Hero. AI in documentary filmmaking has become a hotbed discussion around how it is used or implemented, like we saw with Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain or Pieces by Pieces. The presentation or use of AI in a film has become a point of antagonism, to the point where the Oscars are considering including requirements for filmmakers to disclose use of AI in a production. There are right and wrong ways to use it, and no doubt the question of ethics will be one that will emerge from screening a film like About a Hero. Is that clarity of ethics something you’re hoping might occur after that screening?
NG: Absolutely. There will definitely be conversations throughout the conference around the ethics of AI and transparency and trust and accuracy. It's a really important conversation to be having. The two sessions where we're looking at the craft of where documentary and AI are converging would be the Herzog About a Hero doc and also the Evan Ratliff Shell Game podcast. The thing about both of those is that they are experimenting with AI, and that's clearly part of the entire process. I think that's what's really interesting.
The whole premise of About a Hero, whether people think the film works or not, I love it. It's so funny, because we know how audacious Werner Herzog is. The fact that he made a claim that ‘no computer will ever make a film as great as mine in 4500 years’, which is what made the Polish director rise to the challenge, and with Herzog's permission, he then trained an AI on all of Herzog’s works. Then to create a script from that, it's kind of a bit absurdist, and it's very mind bending. We're sort of at the early stages of some of those experiments.
Similarly, with the podcast Shell Game, I thought it was so clever. The journalist, Evan Ratliff, basically creates an AI clone of himself, and then he unleashes it on all sorts of telephone operators, whether it's scammers or telemarketers, but eventually he unleashes it on friends and family and his psychologist, and then himself. He is his own AI clone. It's clever and witty and brilliant and terrifying.
We’re looking at those elements of AI, but then the very important conversations around AI in general, in screen practice and in archives. I think there are real causes for concern where archives have generally held historical knowledge and artifacts and history, etc. How will we know what is original archive and what has potentially been AI generated? We have the session Archives and the Implications of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence presented by Getty Images with our archive specialist guest from Canada Elizabeth Klinck, alongside the NFSA. They’re really going to unpack that in terms of how there are some really great things that come from AI in archives around discoverability, search, maintenance, and restoration, but there's also some real concerns around factual accuracy and trust and transparency and what does that future look like? I'm not sure.
It's moving so quickly. This is a good chance to dovetail into a discussion around collaborative work. This year you’re spotlighting the work of director Gabrielle Brady and producer Ariunaa Tserenpil. The collaborative nature of that film feels like a template for how collaborative storytelling in a documentary format can work. I know we’ve seen a wealth of films come from Palestine or the Ukraine which are collaborative, co-authored experiences. These co-authored experiences add to the level of truth telling which is on screen. Can you talk about what you feel might come out of the conversations that occur between these discussion points?
NG: There are so many conversations, aren't there? When we think about where we've come from and the sort of power dynamics at play in terms of who has historically had access to funding and who has told the story, there maybe hasn't been the agency on behalf of the participants. Even just moving away from language that we used to use in terms of ‘a subject’, it's kind of like this passive subject that you're filming and there's not much agency. So, we've upgraded the language to talk about film participants or co-authors or collaborators or protagonists, which really gives people more agency.
I think there's the co-creation model, which is one that Gabrielle Brady has worked on substantially, which is collaborating with the participants of the film, Daava and Zaya. Given the cameras weren't there to document part of the story that they wanted to tell, how can you then recreate that with their involvement to share with the world what their experience was? Being part documentary and also part scripted recollection or re-enactment is a really interesting model. It's a way for those protagonists to have this kind of carriage over the story.
Then you look particularly in the First Nations space; there are a lot of filmmakers who would prefer to have First Nations filmmakers completely lead and author a film that's about their communities because of the multiple considerations that they need to carry in terms of culture and history and community.
Then we see collaboration on other levels, which is just very businesslike. But how do we pool resources in a climate that's challenging? Well, that's where maybe co-productions or international co-productions are coming in.
The joy of AIDC is getting to see the evolution of a filmmaker like Jennifer Peedom or Gabrielle Brady. What you spotlight pinnacle figures like Jen Peedom at AIDC, does that help guide where the form of documentary filmmaking can go in the future? Especially in consideration for emerging or established filmmakers who are then able to look at their work and see what they’re creating?
NG: It goes the other way as well, which is really interesting. At a lot of conferences there will be that spotlight on the established practitioners, and at AIDC we also do that. Jen Peedom is speaking, Darren Dale from Blackfella Films is speaking, and Karina Holden from Northern Pictures will be there; a lot of people who are absolutely at the forefront of documentary and factual broadcast, for factual storytelling for broadcast and for streamers and commercial networks will be there. I think everyone can learn from that in terms of what they've had to navigate to be able to get those stories on screen, and then perhaps even create an original format that then gets picked up overseas, which a lot of these filmmakers have been able to achieve.
Something that we really do well is shine a spotlight on emerging practitioners and new talent. So we've got a number of programs that are really supporting new talent. One is the Leading Lights program, which is where the industry will donate passes to enable emerging or diverse practitioners from a number of historically underrepresented groups to attend AIDC for the first time. This year we've had 48 donations. So, 48 documentary enthusiasts will come to AIDC for the first time and get to experience that. And rather than just having them attend, there are a lot of professional development opportunities and meet and greets too.
The feedback we've been getting with a lot of our new talent pitches is that it's the content that is exciting the decision makers the most, whether or not it means that it can then get a commission and land on a network. Sometimes it's those filmmakers who haven't actually learnt the rules where they're not adhering to some predetermined structure or format. What they're creating is really exciting and surprising and unique. A lot of established practitioners are really excited by those emerging practitioners, and then wanting to join up and support them and guide them, but are also just excited by their storytelling because it's fresh and untainted.
As you mention, the breadth of AIDC incorporates podcasts, features, shorts, and TV series. To me, at least, when people hear the word ‘documentary’ they think a 90 minute film that is about something that's happening right now. Obviously, that's not the case. But I imagine for some, shifting the rules or the language around documentary storytelling, and getting to know that they're not beholden to just a 90-minute film, has got to be invigorating. Have you found that people are excited by the different forms of documentary storytelling?
NG: I think that that's also a direction that people are needing to move in to sustain the thinking around not just that you will create your central piece of content, say a six by 30 minutes series or a feature, and then you're going to do some ancillary content on YouTube to generate some awareness, and you might do some short Instagram pieces that a lot of people are now building into the development process in the beginning, but by asking ‘what different formats for what different platforms and what different ways of telling this story do we want to see from the outset, as opposed to an afterthought?’
There's a session called Broadcast Horizons: Redefining TV in the Digital Age. I really wanted to look at the current climate where so many people like the audience, are changing, and where young people are going to for their content is not broadcast television necessarily. We know Facebook is the biggest streamer at present, and where most viewing happens, even in the family home, is on YouTube. So, how are the broadcasters innovating to retain audiences, and potentially generate younger audiences when some of their older, more loyal audiences, are – what's a nice way of putting it – at the end of the conveyor belt.
And so that's going to be a really interesting session. We'll hear from Channel Nine, SBS, ABC. A lot of it is about trying to think around cross platform opportunities, like what ABC is doing with iView and with their podcasts. Creators are thinking of it as well. We've seen successful podcasts become documentary series, something like Stuff the British Stole, for example.
One of the other aspects of AIDC this year is highlighting the power of advocacy in documentaries with films like Black Box Diaries. What does advocacy through documentary storytelling mean to you? How important is it as a form of storytelling?
NG: I think formally it's been I think it's been happening informally for years. Documentary has been around because it is bringing attention to a number of stories, particularly social justice human rights stories, but also stories that we might not otherwise hear about or learn about. Where it's really taken shape is with the world of what we call ‘impact’, which is that rather than just thinking about a film from pre-production to master, and then to showing it to an audience, it's actually thinking about what is not just the distribution strategy, but the impact strategy for that film?
What's the impact strategy for that film beyond the film's completion so that the film unlocks a whole lot of opportunities to get that message into schools, into the UN to overturn legislation, or with some true crime documentaries where it might overturn a wrongful conviction; where there is a whole campaign that is trying to bring the audience into the journey of that impact campaign, so that there is a legacy or some change, and that the audience is empowered to be able to become part of the change.
There's a lot of filmmakers who will be very immersed in the world of this particular cultural group or interest group or art group or whatever it is, and tell their story, and then move on to their next film. There's a lot of what people call ‘extractive tendencies’ where people just extract this story from someone, getting it for their own purpose, making their film, and then getting the royalties and leaving, so I think there's a bit more awareness around that.
I was in a meeting recently where I was being asked by someone who is not part of the sector about what we do, and they were asking about the documentary industry. I was trying to explain the difference between documentary and factual, with factual being anything that you might see on SBS or ABC or Nine that's grounded in some sort of truth is possibly something that might come through AIDC. It can be big format, multi format shows like Maggie Beer’s Big Mission or the Michael Mosley series, or the big Natural History pieces that end up on Nat Geo, right down to that very independent documentary.
I think sometimes people just think that when we're talking about documentary, that it's like someone sitting in their room sticky taping a film together; sometimes it does feel like that when you're making a film independently. But, there is a whole ecosystem: there are very independent documentary filmmakers who are taking five years to build or get all the pieces together to tell this story on a very small budget, then there is also really high-end Commercial Series and formats.
You've got to be so proud about knowing that AIDC is part of driving and encouraging these kinds of conversations. It's got to be exciting to know that change might take place because of this.
NG: Absolutely. The other thing that's really important and that maybe it is not super apparent from the outset, unless you're really diving into all of the things that we do, is that the conference is four days and there's 50 sessions, there are live pitches, awards, spotlight sessions, panel discussions, but for 70% of that program, each of those sessions has months of work going into it; it's been a call out for global productions, and then there’s been a selection process, and then there's been a mentoring process, and then there's been pitch training, and then there's been a trail of consultations to get to the point of pitching.
This year we've introduced the Indigenous Creators Pitch for the first time specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to pitch stories to some of the buyers who are looking specifically for those stories. That's been months in the making.
One thing that I am really proud of is that we are creating these initiatives that are trying to support the whole ecosystem. So, ushering in these new initiatives that usher in emerging filmmakers, but also creating a slate pitch for established production companies so that they can pitch three to five projects to the buyers while they're here. That's something that we recognise was a need from that cohort. I'm incredibly proud and the team is deeply passionate.
Our whole mission is to support and elevate documentary and factual storytelling, and that's what we do.