School of Arts and Humanities

Thursday, 20 March 2025

By Associate Professor Cathy Henkel and comments on the Leading Lights program by SAH PhD candidate Shirin Barghnavard

In 2025, the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) marked its 30^th anniversary. The conference is a leading meeting place for documentary and factual storytellers in the Southern Hemisphere, bringing together practitioners from across Australia and the international community to celebrate and elevate the creation of impactful global stories. The conference offers a marketplace for new ideas, a wide range of industry sessions and initiatives and networking events to stimulate dialogue and connections and contribute to the future of a sustainable and vibrant ecosystem for documentary and factual storytelling.

As a member of the board of AIDC, I contributed to the creation of the Leading Lights program in 2018 as a way to improve the experience of first-time delegates to the conference. Over the past 8 years the program has grown in size and ambition, supporting over 250 first time attendees and offering a range of professional development opportunities including the Leading Light pitch. I am very proud that ECU is the co-presenter of the program along with our colleagues at AFTRS.

The program is driven by industry donors who collectively support emerging, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, d/Deaf, disabled or neurodiverse, culturally and linguistically diverse screen creatives, and those from regional or remote Australia to attend their first AIDC, build networks and participate in professional development opportunities.

As a documentary teacher and practitioner, the conference and Leading Lights program offers many benefits. The industry sessions and marketplace events provide valuable new insights and information about the sector that I’m able to share with colleagues and students. I arranged several guest speakers and strengthened my networks within the industry. I also benefit from mentoring the Leading Lights pitch participants, learning much from their fresh ideas and new approaches. And I am able to maintain a high profile for ECU amongst delegates, and particularly early career practitioners.

Shirin Barghnavard is a documentary practitioner who moved to Australian from Iran and a joined the School of Arts and Humanities at ECU as a PhD candidate. She was a successful applicant to the Leading Lights program in 2025, and she writes of her experience:

“Being a Leading Lights recipient was considered an achievement at the conference. Forty-seven of us, from diverse filmmaking backgrounds, ages, and cultures across Australia, were accepted into this year's Leading Lights. A WhatsApp group was set up for us to connect, and the AIDC app enabled us to contact everyone attending the conference including guest decision makers.

This initiative also provided us with the opportunity to apply for the Leading Lights Pitch. The first session featured a truly inspirational conversation between Richard Welch, filmmaker and discipline lead documentary at AFTRS, and Anu Hasbold, development producer at Sweetshop & Green. Anu shared her filmmaking insights and extensive experiences with us. The final session included pitches of the four selected projects, presented in front of representatives from ABC, SBS, NITV, and Documentary Australia— a great opportunity to learn and be inspired.

I attended as many sessions as possible, each exploring different aspects of documentary cinema in Australia and globally. The most impactful were the three FACTory pitching sessions, which included pitching projects at the rough-cut stage and in development to Australian and international commissioners, funders, streamers, festivals, distributors, and sales agents. During the conference, I contacted and met several people from the Industry Market and discussed my future projects.

Being a Leading Lights and Screenwest Travel Fund recipient was a unique experience and a great introduction to my future documentary filmmaking endeavours. It allowed me to participate in a major event in a meaningful, professional, and welcoming context. Over four active days, it provided an environment for connection, cultivating storytelling ideas in documentary cinema, crystallizing creativity, and learning the mechanisms of pitching projects to the Australian and international markets. It made the conference a familiar place for me, and I am sure it will be the meeting point for many of my future achievements in documentary filmmaking”.