Director: Hollie Fifer
As a director Hollie Fifer’s documentaries are inspired by the true life stories that are too bizarre and courageous to believe.
Her first documentary in 2009 was commissioned by Australian Volunteers International to direct CHILDREN OF THE RAINBOW SERPENT (NITV) set in Tamil Nadu, India. She went onto make COMMON GROUND (SBS) which won 7 awards from international and Australian festivals.
Her most recent shorts CORINNA and VERY IMPRESSIVE both premiered at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival 2013 and 2014 respectively. Currently she is in production on her first feature documentary THE OPPOSITION set in Papua New Guinea and the UK to be released in 2016.
Hollie has attended Asian Side of the Doc 2013 in Malaysia under the Strategic Opportunities Program by Screen NSW and has pitched at FIFO Oceania Pitching Forum 2013 and Good Pitch 2014 at Sydney's Opera House. Hollie is also the documentary tutor at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).
Hollie studied a Bachelor of Film and Television (Hons) at Swinburne University and The Northern Film School in the UK under the Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship graduating with First Class Honours and the Award for Creative Excellence. Hollie continued her studies to receive a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability and Social Change followed by a Graduate Diploma of Documentary from the Australian Film Television and Radio School graduating with the Shark Island Prize for Best Social Impact Documentary.
Producer: Rebecca Barry
Rebecca Barry is an award winning director, writer and producer of documentary and drama films and a graduate from the Australian Film Television and Radio School. Rebecca produced and directed critically acclaimed feature documentary I Am A Girl (2014) which has enjoyed significant international success and was nominated for four AACTA Awards in 2014. Her films have screened at HotDocs, Melbourne International Film Festival, Sydney International Film Festival, St Kilda Short Film Festival, Flickerfest, ATOM, WOW Film Festival and many others. Her multiple filmmaking awards include the AFTRS Screen Critics Circle award for Best Director and Best Film. She was also a nominee for the Emerging Talent Award by the Screen Critics Circle 2003 and recently Highly Commended at the 2009 Australian Directors Guild Awards. Her work as director or producer include: The Opposition (feature documentary), Call Me Dad (ABC), Footy Chicks (SBS), Inspiring Teachers (SBS), Home and Away (Channel 7), The Surgeon (Channel 10), You Am I - The Cream and The Crock (DVD release), Beats Across Borders (ABC), The Space In Between, The McDonagh Sisters (SBS), A Modern Marriage (SBS), Overture (ABC).
Producer: Madeleine Hetherton
Madeleine is an experienced award-winning director and producer working across a wide range of television documentary and top rating factual programs and series. She recently completed producing and directing the ratings success documentary ‘The Surgery Ship’(SBS) which follows stories aboard the worlds largest civilian hospital ship as it roams the coast of West Africa.
Her long form documentary work includes directing the documentary series ‘Making Babies’ (SBS) reviewed as ‘fascinating and moving’ (The Age), ‘Beats Across Borders’ (ABC /Cirque du Soleil) and ‘Love In Our Own Time’. Her filmmaking has taken her around the world shooting in challenging locations including diamond diving in Africa, wildlife trafficking in Burma and the remote outback of Australia.
Her work has won and been nominated for a number of awards including Australian Directors Guild for Best Directing and by the Association of International Broadcasters for Best Contemporary Documentary and best documentary at Sarasota Film Festival.
She has extensive experience in television documentary and factual programs shooting and producing for major production companies such as Endemol Southern Star, IMG Media, Freehand TV & Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder including producing and shooting on over 60 episodes of the top rating ‘Bondi Rescue’ (Ch10/Nat Geo) as well as popular series such as ‘The Nest’ (SBS), ‘Last Chance Surgery’ (Ch7/Discovery) and most recently, the popular ‘Outback Truckies’ (Ch 7).
Impact Producer: Teri Calder
Teri’s career has spanned almost 20 years across both the film industry and the not-for-profit sector. This experience has equipped her with a unique combination of skills. She has a deep understanding of the social change campaign ethos and how films can create a powerful impact.
In the not-for-profit sector, Teri has experience working across communications, advocacy, strategy and fundraising for organisations such as Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Australia Pacific, the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Jubilee Australia and the Council for International Development.
Teri spent almost five years working with Screen Australia across several roles managing the agency’s communications and in her final year, managing the agency's distribution program. In this capacity she worked with both distributors and filmmakers on both traditional theatrical releases and exploring alternative distribution models to connect the dots between content and audiences.
She has also worked with boutique distributors managing national campaigns for social impact documentaries.
Director of Photography: Vincent Lamberti
Vincent is a cinematographer with a background as an award-winning documentary filmmaker. He lived and worked in the Australian Central Desert for many years where he learnt how to shoot with limited resources, shape the available light and work quickly. This often harsh real world environment also taught him the value of relationships, both in front of and behind the camera.
In 2008 his documentary Intervention was the highest rating episode of Message Stick on ABC-TV as well as being awarded Best Australian Documentary by Documentary Australia Foundation. Vincent has a number of broadcast and festival credits to his name. At the other end of the spectrum, in the field of drama, his work as a cinematographer was in competition at Camerimage, Film Festival for the Art of Cinematography in Poland in 2013.
Vincent also teaches at a grass roots level, mentoring young people to tell their stories through film. A music video by students he taught through Community Prophets can be viewed below.
Editor: Bernadette Murray
Bernadette Murray is an Australian film editor with over ten years of experience across drama, documentary, commercial work and art installation.
Recently Bernadette completed the feature documentary ‘The Opposition’ (85mins) set to be released early 2016. Bernadette’s credits also include the feature drama ‘Stalkher’ (75mins) as well as the award winning commercial documentary, ‘Ideas For Good: The One Laptop Per Child Initiative’ which received the Bronze Cannes Media Lion 2011. Her comedy credits include Dylan Moran’s stand-up release ‘What it is’ (2009) and ‘Aim low: The best of Dylan Moran’ (2010).
Bernadette has cut a number of short films and music videos that have screened and received awards in many international and national film festivals. She has assisted on a number of projects for film and television; most recently for the documentary 'Black Panther Woman' produced by Blackfella Films and the ACCTA award winning ABC broadcast documentary series ‘Redesign My Brain.’
Bernadette holds a Graduate Diploma in Editing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), a Graduate Diploma in Animation (RMIT) and a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies from UNSW. Bernadette also teaches editing workshops at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA).
Composer: John Gray
John Gray is a multi-award winning film composer based in Sydney, Australia. He has written both Orchestral and Acoustic/Electronic scores for film - some of which have been finalists and winners internationally at Sundance, Montreal, Venice, Berlin, NYU, San Francisco(Mill Valley), St. Tropez, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney international film festivals, to name a few.
Production Company: MEDIA STOCKADE
Media Stockade is an independent production company based in Sydney, Australia, with our eyes and ears open to stories from around the world.
Founders, Rebecca Barry and Madeleine Hetherton, share over a decade of film and TV production experience and collectively have made over 50 hours of broadcast television. They have been colleagues for the last 15 years and now are working together on an exciting slate of projects. They are joined by Impact Producer Teri Caldwell, whose passion for social impact story telling and engaging audiences across platforms, keeps Media Stockade pushing the boundaries in form, as well as subject.
Our programs are provocative and socially relevant. Often witty, humorous, insightful – our stuff entertains without being stupid. We want to move people – and inspire them to action and debate. But we are not didactic. We respect the intelligence of our audience.
We are uncompromising in the best sense of the word. We strive for excellence. We collaborate, develop and produce projects together. We offer support, advice and strategy to independent filmmakers, to enable them to produce their ideas. We genuinely love enabling stories and most importantly working with people who inspire us.
Executive Producer: Beadie Finzi
Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of BRITDOC, a non-profit film foundation based in London and supporting filmmakers globally. Having worked in documentary for the past 20 years, Beadie is in heaven in her role at BRITDOC – whose mission is to befriend independent filmmakers, fund great films, broker new partnerships, build new business models, share knowledge and develop audiences globally. In addition to Executive Producing a number of films at the foundation, Beadie is also responsible for global programmes including Good Pitch and the PUMA Impact Award.
Executive Producer: Jess Search
Jess has been the Chief Executive of BRITDOC since its launch in 2005. Previously she was a Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 TV in the UK for 5 years. Jess has an MBA from Cass Business School. She is also a moderator at the IDFA Pitching Forum in Amsterdam and remains involved in Shooting People, the online independent filmmakers network she co-founded in 1998.