2024 Recipients
Veronica Fury
Veronica Fury is an award winning Producer, Executive Producer and Principal of WildBear Entertainment. WildBear produces over 200 hours of factual screen content every year and has offices in Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney and Dunedin (Aotearoa). Based in Brisbane, Veronica has over 85 commissioned television and feature documentaries to her name and produced over 250 hours of screen content including, Gem Hunters Down Under (Network 7) Wildlife ER (Blue Ant Media), And We Danced (ABC) and Wild Winter (All3). Veronica produced AACTA nominated Brock: Over the Top Ford v Holden (Universal), Award winning biopic (produced with EP’s Elton John and David Furnish) Hating Peter Tatchell (now streaming on Netflix) and A League of Her Own for ABC. Veronica is a Screen Producers Australia Councillor and sits on the Board of Curriculum at Bond University and the Industry Advisory Board of Griffith Film School.
Kate Boylan-Ascione
Kate Boylan-Ascione is a Gimuy/Cairns-based creative producer specializing in impact screen storytelling. Kate’s work spans across short films, documentaries, music videos and TVCs. After completing a Bachelor of Film and Screen Media Production and working in diverse roles across the film industry, Kate received the Lord David Puttnam Scholarship for Producers in 2020 and went on to complete a Research Masters of Advanced Screen Production with a focus on social impact for young audiences. She is currently in post-production for her debut feature documentary, ‘Let Them Hug’, and in development for short community-driven documentary set in Gimuy.
Nu'utea Robillot
Originally from France, Nu’utea’s love of the creative arts started from a very early age of drawing, blending into painting, and morphing into a love for film and media. Born into a family of marine biologists and environmentalists, Nu’utea has a passion for humanitarian and environmental causes.
She has worked with Soul Vision Films, the Queensland Holocaust Museum, Women’s International. League for Peace and Freedom and Griffith University editing and contributing on vast projects that bring to light important issues and events from our past, present and future. Most recently she worked as an assistant editor on the film To Never Forget (2022) which was nominated in the AACTA Awards of 2023 for Best Documentary. It is Nu’utea’s goal to leave behind her footprint in her generation’s history books. With the SheDoc grant, Nu’utea hopes to expand her skillset within the postproduction department through both courses and placements.
Jo-Anne Brechin
Jo-Anne Brechin is a queer, neurodivergent filmmaker whose award-winning documentaries have aired on SBS and ABC, and have screened in film festivals across Australia and around the world, including in Academy-Accredited competition at Flickerfest and GBiennale21. As an AFTRS graduate, writer-director Jo-Anne Brechin brings bold stories to life across both big and small screens with a keen focus on cutting to the truth. Through SHEDOC 2024, Jo-Anne will catapult her company, Nudge Co Studio, from online to feature-length documentary production. Jo-Anne recently teamed up with Daniela Pizzirani on Nudge Co Studio’s original docuseries, MISS INK, funded by Screen Australia.
Sasha Parlett
A woman of Malyangapa and Barkindji descent, Sasha has always had a passion for the
film industry. Sasha developed her career as a community filmmaker, helping local mobs
to share their stories their way.
Sasha has a wide range of experience working across many formats of filmmaking from
Visual Designer for a theatre production, public video installations and documentary
video and photo travelling art exhibitions across Australia and internationally.
Sasha has been investing her time into growing her skills as a director with a focus on
documentary format.
Mags Scholes
Mags is the Principal of Beige Radio Pictures and has over twenty years experience telling human rights and female-led stories.
The Great Green Wall, which Mags Line Produced, opened the 2019 UN Conference on Climate Change in New York. She has worked with directors such as: Anthony Minghella, Fernando Meirelles, and Kriv Stenders and spent 15 years working onset. Her directorial debut short film, Call Me, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Mags was Head of International Production at BAFTA winning production company MAKE Waves and Head of Content at Screen Queensland. She has worked with SBS, ABC, BBC, Channel4 and WildBear Entertainment.
About Shedoc 2024
SheDoc 2024 is a Documentary Australia initiative to support female-identifying documentary filmmakers, made possible by the Queensland Government through Screen Queensland, the estate of James Simpson Love, and the Nelson Meers Foundation.
For 2024, we have welcomed female-identifying documentary filmmakers, currently working in documentary at any stage of their career that are residents of Queensland.
This professional development program is aimed to support women working in key creative roles in the documentary sector including producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors, sound designers and composers. Applications are encouraged from women from under-represented backgrounds, including those identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, LGBTQIA+, culturally and linguistically diverse, living with disability and based in regional and remote areas.
Our aim with awarding these grants is to:
to encourage new voices
to enable skills to be consolidated or developed
to assist the development of projects
to assist in building strategic audience engagement strategies
to enable attachments, travel and professional development opportunities.
The goal of SheDoc 2024 is to develop and foster women’s voices exploring varied and nuanced perspectives on issues that affect the lives of women and to support creative and leadership aspirations amongst female-identifying documentary filmmakers.
Supported by:
Estate of James Simpson Love
BACKGROUND
Documentary Australia established the SheDoc fellowship in 2016 and since then, the need to address significant under-representation of women in the media has not diminished. Still today, many key leadership roles in documentary filmmaking are male dominated.
This is what we did then and this is what we would like to do again…
SheDoc 2024 is a natural continuation of Documentary Australia’s successful SheDoc fellowship. Since 2016, the SheDoc fellowship has accelerated the careers and projects of six female filmmakers by providing financial support for their professional development and enabling recipients to travel with and attach to experienced mentors. We learnt first-hand how the intervention of this program can elevate the careers of filmmakers and their projects’ outcomes.
With momentum building against inequality, and the consistent lack of diverse perspectives, the time is now for more stories to be told by women about women – and for women’s careers to be advanced in filmmaking. We need to hear more from women’s perspectives in mainstream media.
Previous Recipients
Charlotte Mars – Producer
Charlotte is a producer who focuses on queer identity and the lives of women across both fiction and documentary. Charlotte has worked on award-winning projects including ABC’s The Slap, Foxtel’s The Devil’s Playground and Gayby Baby, which she produced alongside director Maya Newell under the production company they co-founded, Marla House.
SheDoc funded Charlotte’s move into directing and the development of her feature documentary, Muscle. It also provided her the opportunity to undertake a mentorship with visual artist and filmmaker Amos Gebhardt.
Philippa Bateman – Producer
Philippa is a producer with 25+ years industry experience. She is the founder of production company Enigma Machine, prior to which she was CEO and co-owner of award-winning production company April Films.
SheDoc allowed her to move from producing to directing and to travel to the USA to work with Alec Gibney as a mentor in his New York production company. On return, she revived an old project from 15 years ago and wrote and directed Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow which launched at the Sydney Film Festival in the State Theatre and was released theatrically in 2022.
“SheDoc was professionally life changing. It gave me the confidence to do things outside how I was defined in the industry” – Philippa Bateman
Vera Hong – Director
Vera is an experienced director, producer and cinematographer passionate about creating legacies through documentary. She is also the founder of Vera Hong Productions.
Vera used her SheDoc funding to develop a docudrama about the ancestral remains of the 42,000 year-old Mungo Man to the Willandra Lakes region of the Mutthi Mutthi, Barkandji and Ngiyaampa people. The opportunity involved mentorship from acclaimed producer Bridget Ikin and funded the employment of Mutthi Mutthi elder Aunt Mary Pappin as writer and cultural advisor.
“Thank you SheDoc for the opportunity to make new connections, undertake mentorships, support our collaborators and refine our project creatively ready for the next phase” – Vera Hong
Gemma quilty – Filmmaker
Gemma is an emerging observational documentary filmmaker who centres the stories and communities of her native Western Sydney through her films.
Gemma used her grant to fund the research and development of a slate of documentaries, two AFTRS courses that would progress her career, and intensive mentorship from documentary filmmaker Tom Zubrycki.
“The SheDoc funds kept me going during the research and development stage when I had no funding, and I’m so grateful for that” – Gemma Quilty
Georgia quinn – Filmmaker
Georgia is a filmmaker and impact producer with a passion for sharing under-represented stories.
SheDoc provided Georgia with the opportunity to work with Walkley Award-winning video journalist and filmmaker Yaara Bous Melhem on an intense professional development schedule. Since SheDoc, Georgia has travelled with Yaara, supporting her documentary work for Al Jazeera and has become a sought after Impact Producer working on In My Blood It Runs and Unseen Skies.
“We all know that elevating women’s voices is beneficial for all of society, and I am grateful to have the resources to be mentored by strong women and to have the space to develop my own work.” – Georgia Quinn
Justine moyle – Director
Justine is a director with over 15 years of multi-platform experience. She is the director of Tall Poppy – A Skater’s Story, which followed Australia’s best female skateboarder Poppy Starr Olsen over ten years from the bowl at Bondi skatepark to qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.
Justine used her SheDoc funding to travel to the US to film and edit her film. She was also able to work with critically-acclaimed director, Lucy Walker, and gain invaluable guidance from several US-based mentors.
“It was a super informative and awesome experience and I can’t thank the donors enough for the support and Documentary Australia for the opportunity” – Justine Moyle
We use stories to incite action and create impact on vital social issues
Annual Impact Report 2023-2024
In FY23-24, Documentary Australia continued its commitment to empowering filmmakers to create and share compelling narratives to drive meaningful social impact.
The financial year saw a growth in the demand for documentary and the presence of Documentary Australia-supported films across various release options. Our commitment also extends beyond the lens, encompassing partner and industry engagement that elevates the collective impact of our endeavours.
Our dedicated community of donors play a pivotal role in our success. Your generous support enables us to bring powerful stories to life and to create real impact on the issues that matter most.