Leadership and Advocacy

In recent years, Documentary Australia has stepped into a stronger leadership and advocacy role for the independent documentary sector. We aim to provide a united voice for the sector on issues directly impacting the recognition of and support for documentary filmmaking in Australia.

Documentary Australia plays a unique role in the sector. We offer specialised funding approaches, partnership models, enhance distribution for greater impact over the long term, design impact models, strategies and tactics and evaluate social outcomes and impact.

We aim to facilitate a community of practice, support advocacy and sector development and partner with leading research, university and corporate partners.

For the documentary sector, we aim to underpin advocacy and influence government policy and legislation with the goal to firmly establish the value of documentary and publicly recognise its impacts socially and culturally. In 2021 Documentary Australia led a year long advocacy campaign to oppose the proposed tax reforms that would have decimated the documentary sector – and we won. Our campaign focused on the unique nature of documentary, recognising its intrinsic cultural and historical value to our national narrative and the social value it brings to highlighting pressing social issues.

At Documentary Australia our evaluation supports three key strategic objectives:

• Increase visibility of documentary (and Documentary Australia)
• Increased acknowledgement of the role of documentary in affecting social impact
• Increased quality of impact strategies and campaigns.