DOCUMENTARY & NON-FICTION NEXUS SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Keynote speaker I

Poh Leong Koh is the Executive Creative Director for The Culture Capital. He brings along his years of experience from the multiple advertising agencies in Malaysia and New Zealand back to Sarawak to engage with a new audience, with a new commitment of championing indigenous cultures through his experience working with Māori of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Keynote: Outside In: Navigating Indigenous Stories Beyond Institutional Frames

Abstract: What does it mean to tell indigenous stories when you are not from the community, when you are looking from the outside in? This keynote reflects on a journey shaped by years of creative practice across advertising and documentary fields in Malaysia and Aotearoa New Zealand, culminating in a return to Sarawak with a renewed commitment to culturally grounded storytelling. Drawing from firsthand experiences working alongside Māori creatives and communities, the presentation explores the responsibilities, challenges, and ethical complexities of engaging with Indigenous narratives as an outsider. It interrogates the dominant institutional frameworks that often mediate and distort these stories, advocating instead for a decentralised, collaborative approach - one that prioritises listening over leading, presence over authorship. Through his recent work, “I am Melanau”, this keynote invites filmmakers, artists, and cultural practitioners to critically reimagine their role in representing voices that are not their own, and to consider how working outside traditional systems can create space for more equitable, respectful, and transformative storytelling.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER II

Helen De Michiel is a San Francisco-based filmmaker, author and media leader whose work appears in collections at MoMA, The Exploratorium, and Walker Art Center. She co-authored "Open Space New Media Documentary: A Toolkit for Theory and Practice" and teaches film at California College of the Arts.

Keynote: From Product to Process: Open Space Documentary Across Cultures

Abstract: Instead of treating subjects and communities as sources to be mined for content, filmmaker and Professor Helen De Michiel will consider new frameworks for documentary and what she calls "life filming." She asks: How can filmmakers and researchers foster deep reciprocal relationships where meaning is developed and co-created across the life of the project, rather than extracted simply for commercial ends?" She invites participants to reclaim documentary as a relational approach, embracing what she terms 'Open Space Documentary'—a framework that has the capacity to extend the genre far beyond its conventional role as a product for media consumption. It can serve as an interface and bridge across cultures in our increasingly fragmented world. In practice, documentary isn't just about capturing the world in stories or making an argument. It holds the potential to create literal and thematic spaces to actually experiment with being in the world differently. As an open space methodology, it creates containers for dialogue, reflection, collaboration and collective meaning-making. These include approaches to prioritize the power of conversation over debate, to develop experiences for uncertainty and complexity, and to explore trust and care practices. By co-stewarding and evolving future relational spaces together (including with AI collaborators), documentary becomes a potent form of social practice. It builds intentional environments for meaningful encounter among diverse perspectives. These frameworks have the promise to allow for collective, dynamic re-thinking of connection across seemingly intractable barriers, revealing the true power of this many-pronged creative medium.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER III

Denby Weller is a filmmaker and journalist, and a lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Weller’s research, which encompasses documentary film practice and social media cultures, looks at the ways Australians who hold unpopular views experience public debates about controversial issues. Her latest documentary, Unvaccinated, is screening online.

Keynote: Defining ‘adrenalised discourse’ about COVID-19 through innovative documentary practice

Abstract: During COVID-19, news outlets in Australia grappled with ways to counter misinformation. Some Australians’ trust in the mainstream media declined so much that they turned to alternative sources for their information about COVID-19 and its vaccines. They were referred to by politicians and journalists as ‘covidiots’ and subjected to increasingly vitriolic commentary about their beliefs and actions. In this environment of vilification, filmmaker and journalist Denby Weller sought to produce a documentary exploring the beliefs and experiences of COVID-19 vaccine hesitant Australians. Weller developed a novel approach to the production of the film, which responds to Patricia Zimmerman and Helen De Michiel’s Open Space Documentary, and extends the practice through a deeply reflexive and participatory approach.

CONTACT US

• Co-chair: Associate Professor Dr. Max Schleser
• Affiliation: Swinburne University of Technology
• Email: mschleser@swin.edu.au

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• Co-chair: Ts. Augustus Segar
• Affiliation: Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus
• Email: asegar@swinburne.edu.my

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• Secretariat: Wilson Suai Moses
• Affiliation: Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus
• Email: wmoses@swinburne.edu.my