Dokpolitik: The State of Play for Policy and Advocacy

Join moderator Stephanie King (Documentary Australia) in conversation with industry experts Grainne Brunsdon (Screen Australia), Matthew Deaner (Screen Producers Australia) and James Dickinson (Screenights) to reflect on the year that was and the state of play for documentary policy and advocacy in 2025.

While 2024 was meant to be the year that saw Australian content quotas mandated for streaming platforms, the government’s deadline of July 1 came and went. First there was speculation about the role of Australia’s free trade agreement, and then it was the US election allegedly contributing to delays. By November, the media was reporting that the government had shelved the regulation altogether, while MPs privately insisted that it was not too late.

In the meantime, the documentary sector has continued to see change – changes to documentary funding, changes to commissioning, the release of AI usage principles, the launch of discoverability initiatives to help Australian stories be seen, proposed revisions to the Copyright Act, and a grassroots movement of screen sector practitioners and advocates springing up in nearly 80 electorates around the country.

We ‘survived to 25’, so what’s next? As we look to the 2025 federal election the panel will discuss the broad role of government across many areas – including regulation and guardrails, public funding, incentives, interventions and initiatives – and what the sector needs to shore up the sustainability of documentary storytelling into the future.

 

Image credit: Behind the scenes of Undermined – Tales from the Kimberley (Amnesia Productions, 2018)