Southern Screens : Southern Stories Building a New Screen Culture in South Australia Peter Wintonick Thinker in Residence 2005 Peter Wintonick | Southern Screens : Southern Stories Southern Screens : Southern Stories Building a New Screen Culture in South Australia Prepared by Peter Wintonick Department of the Premier and Cabinet c/- GPO Box 2343 Adelaide SA 5001 January 2006 ©All rights reserved – Crown – in right of the State of South Australia ISBN 0-9752027-8-2 www.thinkers.sa.gov.au 1 Peter Wintonick Foreword Based in Montreal, Peter Wintonick is an Peter Wintonick’s period as an Adelaide Thinker It provides a thorough analysis of the four internationally pre-eminent fi gure in digital in Residence in 2005 was highly constructive, ‘spheres’ critical to the creation of a thriving documentary media production. Peter has been a and it stimulated vibrant and necessary debate and globally plugged-in digital documentary producer, director, critic, advisor, media activist and about the future of the South Australian fi lm sector in South Australia: education, the screen editor of all manner of independent fi lm, video industry. industry, the community and infrastructure. and new-media, an array which includes dramatic features, theatrical documentaries, web-sites and Through his wit, insight and experience, he The report also includes a series of valuable educational and socio-political works. delivered on the great promise of his residency and challenging recommendations – covering – which was to engage, enthuse, and enable. everything from the promotion of greater He is most noted for co-producing and directing, ‘media literacy’ in our schools to increased with Mark Achbar, one of the most successful Peter’s time in South Australia coincided with support for the Media Resource Centre. documentaries in Canadian history Manufacturing the State Government-instigated Adelaide Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. The fi lm Film Festival and the Australian International We in South Australia thank Peter Wintonick played theatrically around the world in 200 cities, Documentary Conference, and he made a for helping us to see and think freshly about won 22 awards in more than 50 international fi lm major contribution to both events. fi lm, and for giving us the equipment – in our The following partners were involved in festivals and was broadcast in almost 30 markets heads and our hands – to tell our own stories. Peter Wintonick’s residency: in a dozen language versions. More substantially, he met the four objectives of his residency: Department of the Premier and Cabinet In 2002, Peter Wintonick directed and produced, • to contribute to a plan to develop South with Katerina Cizek, Seeing is Believing: Handicams, Australia’s digital documentary industry; South Australian Film Corporation Human Rights and the News, an exploration into • to help the State create global networks the political and social uses of handicams and new in the fi lm industry; Department of Education and Children’s communications technologies, which won the • to provide advice on education policy, Mike Rann Services prestigious Hamptons International Film Festival’s including curricula; Premier of South Australia Abraham Prize. and Minister for the Arts Flinders University • to strengthen the knowledge and skills of January 2006 He directed the feature documentary Cinema South Australian students and educators. University of South Australia Verité: Defi ning the Moment, about the history and contemporary legacy of that most important fi lm This report – Southern Screens: Southern Stories Arts SA revolution which was the special prize winner at – is the culmination of Peter’s work, and it’s one the 2001 Banff Television Festival and winner of the I warmly welcome. Adelaide Film Festival Ecumenical Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Australian International Documentary Peter Wintonick is currently circumnavigating Conference the globe, holding workshops, advising festivals, writing for numerous hardcopy and online magazines and post-producing several fi lms he has directed, one of which investigates the inter-generational shift from old to new media throughout the world, made with his daughter Mira Burt-Wintonick. 2 3 Acknowledgements Contents In particular, I would like to thank the South Abbreviations 7 A Thousand Flowers Blooming in a Australian Film Corporation, the Adelaide Digital Sun 26 Film Festival, the Australian International 1 Summary of Main Understand Media 27 Documentary Conference, the Department of 8 On the need for Media Literacy 28 Education and Children’s Services, The University Recommendations of South Australia, Flinders University, Arts SA Screen Education 8 Teaching Media 29 and the Thinkers Unit of the Department of the Screen Industries 9 Media Literacy and South Australia’s Premier and Cabinet. 30 Community Media 11 Strategic Directions Infrastructure 12 Fostering a Culture of Creativity and I would also like to thank the hard working Industrial Development 31 people in the Thinkers Offi ce - Ann Clancy, Pamela James-Martin, Alyssa Late, Joanna 2 Introduction 13 A Future Vision for a Media Literate South Australia 31 Hughes, Brenda Kuhr, Denise Maddigan, The Educational Sphere 14 Gabrielle Overton and Pauline Tuft, and my Recommendations for the The Screen Industries Sphere 14 Ngai wangandi marni nabudni Kaurna researchers and ‘thoughtcatchers’ Beth Neate Educational Sphere 32 yertaanna - The Adelaide Plains of South and Rachael Thompson. The Community Media Sphere 14 Australia are home to the Kaurna Aboriginal The Infrastructure Sphere 15 6 The Screen Industries Sphere 37 people. Also on a personal level, I want to acknowledge Building a Rainbow Bridge 15 Highlights of Recommendations for the the hundreds of citizens of South Australia I Screen Industries 37 At all the offi cial functions I attend in South have met along my thinking way. They have 3 37 Australia, and indeed in my own country, given me their ear, or an earful. They have been Some refl ections on Thinking in Reality Check: The Rebirth of Documentary Canada and throughout the world, I think it is universally kind and generous with their ideas, Residence 16 Scope of the Screen Industries always important to fi rst acknowledge that we their complaints, their wishes, their visions, and Consultation 42 are working and living on the traditional lands their opinions. 4 South Australia and Digitopia 18 Creative Industries in South Australia 43 of the First Peoples. A Utopian History Lesson 18 Observations: The Screen Industries 44 But mostly I want to acknowledge the brilliant But I always also found fi nd myself musing as media work shining out from all corners of Don Dunstan: The Beginnings Success Stories 44 20 the conventional greeting is announced: ‘Well, the State, the work of young and fi rst-time of Digitopia A General Appraisal 45 that’s all very fi ne to acknowledge the past, but fi lmmakers, the work and promise of those The Context: History and Screen Culture 47 what are we all going to do about it now, to emerging from the educational sectors, the 5 The Educational Sphere 21 49 make things right?’ work done with fl air and social justice in the The Adelaide Film Festival Highlights of Recommendations for communities by groups like Carclew or Nunga The Adelaide Film Festival Education 21 The challenge is to make all of our stories come TV, the work beginning in the schools by kids Investment Fund 49 Media Education 21 together, Aboriginal and other originals, and to like Heidi the six-year old animator, facilitated The Australian International 22 be accessible to each other. by teachers who will take us all into a place I call The Work: Results and Outcomes Documentary Conference (AIDC) 50 Digitopia. Observations in Media Education: The Don Dunstan Film Fund 51 I would like to thank Premier Mike Rann, 23 The Current State 52 Warren McCann and the Cabinet for their Peter Wintonick The Fifty Cent Fund Tensions, Issues and Perceptions 25 support for a highly innovative, world-leading Thinker in Residence Creating Inter/Screen 52 program, Thinkers in Residence. 2005 4 5 Contents Abbreviations How Inter/Screen and the Screen Scope of the Consultation in ABC Australian Broadcasting PLICT Professional Learning in Catalyst Could Work 53 Aboriginal Media 82 Corporation Information and Communication The South Australian Film Corporation 54 Macumba Media 82 ACCC Australian Competition and Technologies Our Paradise of Dissent 55 Media in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Consumer Commission SA South Australia 83 ScreenSA 56 Yankunytjatjara Lands AFC Australian Film Commission SAAME South Australian Association of 84 Media Education Visualisations and Suggestions for Policies Nunga TV AFF Adelaide Film Festival and Directions for SAFC/ScreenSA 59 US Mob.com 84 AFFIF Adelaide Film Festival Investment SAFC South Australian Film Corporation Visualising Screen SA’s Budget 63 Recommendations for Aboriginal Media 85 Fund SPAA Screen Producers Association of Australia Visualising Incubation and Career Creating a Community Media Hub 86 AFI Australian Film Institute Development 63 AFTRS Australian Film, Television and SSABSA Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia Visualising Documentary and Digital 8 The infrastructure sphere 87 Radio School 67 TAFE Technical and Further Education Opportunities Highlights of Recommendations for AIDC Australian Industry Development Screen Culture for ScreenSA 68 Infrastructure 87 Commission TSOF Technology School of the Future Infrastructure for ScreenSA 69 Observations