Bernadine Lim is a seasoned media executive and creative producer who understands both the art and business of impactful factual storytelling. Bernadine is Senior Commissioning Editor of Factual at SBS Australia. Formerly, she was Head of Documentary at Screen Australia and Executive Producer of award-winning SBS Dateline. She has several awards including Gold and Silver from the New York Festivals and an Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts nomination for Best Direction in a Documentary.

Cieron is a development/production executive with experience overseeing slates across feature film, documentary, broadcast drama, children’s content, innovation, games and VR. His experience encompasses a breadth of development/production programs as well as initiatives designed to advance concepts, elevate talent and build business. In 2017 Cieron departed Screen Queensland as Vice President of Development and Production supporting the creative and commercial outcomes of a diverse range of content. Cieron has supported a range of award-winning productions with some of Australia’s and the world’s most recognised market players and talent. After several years as Commissioning Editor with SBS/National Indigenous Television, Cieron has joined Screen Australia as Development and Investment Manager – Documentary.

Ania Trzebiatowska is a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on US and World documentary features.

Most recently, she was the sales and acquisitions executive for doc sales agency, Autlook Filmsales. Prior to that she was with the NYC-based agency, Visit Films, where she served as the senior director of acquisitions since 2015. Aside from her work at Sundance, Ania was also the artistic director of Off Camera IFF (Krakow, Poland), which she programmed between 2008-2020.

The Sundance Film Festival brings together the most original storytellers and the most adventurous audiences for its annual program of dramatic, documentary, and short films; New Frontier films, performances, exhibitions, and virtual reality experiences; episodic storytelling; lively filmmaker conversations and panel discussions; and dynamic music events. Since 1985, hundreds of films launched at the Festival have gained critical recognition and reached worldwide audiences eager for fresh perspectives and new voices.

A nonprofit organisation, Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for independent artists to create and present original, authentic new work. Founded by Robert Redford in 1981 in the mountains of Sundance, Utah, the Institute is an internationally recognised resource for thousands of artists. With its Sundance Film Festival and artistic development programs for film, theatre, and new media artists, the Institute seeks to advance the impact of independent storytelling throughout the world.

Pauline is A Yaegl woman from North Coast NSW she has worked as a storyteller and producer in film and TV for 25 years.

She is founder and artistic director of Winda Film Festival in Sydney, was the programmer for imagineNATIVE media +arts festival in Toronto, and is co-creator of NativeSLAM – a 72-hour Indigenous film challenge held at Maoriland Film Festival in Otaki – and nativeSLAM the feature.

Known for her extensive work in championing and producing the works of Australia’s emerging and Indigenous filmmakers, Pauline has spent the last 20 years helping to develop and mentor other filmmakers and their voices. Her roles have included being the series producer for ABC’s Messagestick from 2000-2004, the Indigenous training officer at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School from 2009 to 2013; and from 2013-15 she was the Commissioning Editor and Head of Internal Productions for NITV, creating among other things, the landmark initiative “Our Stories, Our Way, Everyday”. In 2015 she won the Stanley Hawes Award 2015 for Contribution to Australian Documentaries.

She is currently an Associate Professor, Manager of Cultural Resilience Hub, Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research at the UTS. Pauline also shares her wisdom, industry experience and integrity with emerging creative entrepreneurs through Creative Plus Business. As a NSW Treasury endorsed creative specialist, Pauline helps independent filmmakers and other creative people to strengthen their financial sustainability so they can continue to make extraordinary art and stories with empowered, and viable, creative models.

Dorota Lech is a Polish-born, Toronto and Los Angeles-based film programmer and independent curator. Since 2013 she has worked for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where she is an International Programmer focussing on films from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe as well as the Caucasus and Western Asia. She also produces the Hot Docs Forum, a pitching event aimed at garnering financing for international documentaries, at North America’s largest documentary festival. Dorota is also a programmer at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and holds a double M.A. in Political Science and Gender Studies from McGill University.

Andrea Ulbrick is an award-winning director and producer with an award-winning domestic and international career spanning 32 years. Since 2016, Andrea has been a Screen Investment Manager at Screen NSW and has managed more than 300 film and TV productions across a range of genres including TV drama such as the award-winning ‘Mystery Road’ Series 2 (2019), dozens of award-winning feature documentaries including ‘Firestarter’ (2020), the Walkley-winning 3-part documentary series ‘Revelation’ (2020) and the multi award- winning ‘Backtrack Boys’ (2018), as well as VR content including the Emmy-award winning film ‘Awavena’ (2019).

Julie is the Manager for ABC Factual, commissions include ‘Reef Live’, ‘Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds’, ‘Further Back In Time for Dinner’, ‘Anh’s Brush with Fame’, ‘Shaun Micallef’s On the Sauce’, ‘Aftermath: Beyond Black Saturday’, ‘Australia Talks’, ‘Restoration Australia’, ‘Brazen Hussies’ and ‘Tick F**king Tock’ (the story of the Doug Anthony Allstars).

Julie has worked extensively as an executive producer, series producer and director across a wide range of genres.

Julie worked as an executive producer for ITV Studios – Australia, across a broad range of programmes including factual, lifestyle, entertainment, comedy and long form documentaries. Julie is passionate about exploring stories that examine social issues and push the boundaries with innovative storytelling techniques.

The ABC Factual team consistently produces high quality, award winning programs across a wide range of genres that connect with audiences on a variety of ABC platforms. ABC Factual is responsible for thought-provoking and inspiring programs such as ‘Fight for Planet A’, ‘Revelation’, ‘Love on the Spectrum’, ‘Employable Me’, ‘War on Waste’, ‘Magical Land of Oz’, ‘Back In Time For Dinner’, ‘Exposed: The Case of Keli Lane’ and ‘Don’t Stop the Music’.

Hollie is currently the Director of Australian Programs at Doc Society and Director of the arts not-for-profit Schoolhouse Studios in Melbourne.

As a documentary filmmaker, Hollie’s films have screened at festivals and broadcasted within Australia and internationally. The Opposition is Hollie’s debut feature documentary produced by Media Stockade that world premiered at Hot Docs and IDFA in 2016 before winning the Grand Prize at FIFO, screening at the UN Human Rights Council, winning Best Documentary Feature at the Oz Flix Independent Film Awards and screening in over 35 countries. Hollie’s latest short film Unbalanced recently premiered on Australian newspapers The Age/Sydney Morning Herald’s Vox Dox series.

Hollie on the Board of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) and the Castlemaine Documentary Festival (CDoc). In her previous work she has been a freelance tutor in Documentary Directing at NIDA and AFTRS, Co-Director of The Artists Guild, selected for MECCA Shark Island M-Power Program and Doc Society’s Global Impact Producers Squad.

Andrea Ulbrick is an award-winning director and producer with an award-winning domestic and international career spanning 32 years. Since 2016, Andrea has been a Screen Investment Manager at Screen NSW and has managed more than 300 film and TV productions across a range of genres including TV drama such as the award-winning ‘Mystery Road’ Series 2 (2019), dozens of award-winning feature documentaries including ‘Firestarter’ (2020), the Walkley-winning 3-part documentary series ‘Revelation’ (2020) and the multi award- winning ‘Backtrack Boys’ (2018), as well as VR content including the Emmy-award winning film ‘Awavena’ (2019).

Jeanie Davison is the Industry Development Manager at Screenworks, a non-profit registered charity based in Northern NSW that supports and services the screen industry across regional Australia, providing industry and professional development, networking initiatives, opportunities and services for screen content creators and workers.

Prior to Screenworks, Jeanie managed the documentary development slate at Screen Australia and oversaw joint initiatives including the ABC ‘Art Bites’ series and the Al Jazeera ‘Witness’ commissioning initiative.

Before Screen Australia, Jeanie spent 10 years in the UK producing TV programmes for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Five, before taking on head of factual and head of development roles for leading independent production companies in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

She’s developed and produced factual programs and documentaries for many international broadcasters, notably Discovery, History Channel, National Geographic, ABC and Seven (Australia), TVNZ and TV3 (New Zealand).

She also has extensive experience field producing and directing TV and digital content around the world for high-profile non-profit organisations including UNICEF, Amnesty International and Comic Relief.

lIikka Vehkalahti’s activities as an independent producer from 2015 forward includes the production of Sundance awarded ‘Machines’ by Rahul Jain and ‘Raghu Rain: An Unframed Portrait’ by Avani Rai, which premiered at IDFA 2017. He was a co-producer of ‘Winnie’ by Pascal Lamche, which was awarded at Sundance, and ‘Chris the Swiss’ by Anja Komfelt, which premiered at Cannes 2018. He is currently finishing the production of ‘Invisible Demons’ by Rahul Jain.

Rough Cut Service (roughcutservice.com) collects some of the best editors in the world to provide online support to documentary film makers with challenging productions. RCS has worked already with more than 100 films from nearly 40 countries, among them winners at Sundance, IDFA and the Berlinare. 

Iikka is one of the executive producers in Dare To Dream Asia and is part of the building an all African project Generation Africa (www.steps.co.za).

He was a commissioning editor for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE Documentaries, Finland 1998-2015; executive producer for ‘Steps For The Future’ and one of the series producers for ‘Why Democracy’. A visiting professor in Tampere University 2011-2012, he has been involved in or supported numerous international well known documentaries like ‘Act of Killing’, ‘Look Of Silence’, ‘Armadillo’, ‘Happiness’, ‘Don’t Breath’, ‘Placebo’, ‘The Ambassadors’ and ‘Vivan les Antipodes’. 

Before YLE Iikka directed awarded documentaries for Epidem and Musafilm; among them ‘Past is Present’, ‘Amal’, ‘Inam’, ‘Naila’, ‘A Man from the Shadow’ and ‘Tehri – Two Journeys’.

Iikka has been lecturing, leading workshops and having masterclasses in different European countries: Australia, Kenya, Russia, USA, India, South Africa, DRC, Nepal and Canada.