Dr Tom Murray and Dr Karen Pearlman from Macquarie’s Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies have both had films shortlisted for prestigious awards in the festival, which for the first time will make its line-up available for audiences to stream the films.

Dr Tom Murray’s The Skin of Others is shortlisted for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Best Australian Documentary. Part of an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award research project, the film explores the significant foundational narratives of Australia: World War I and the Frontier Wars, through the biographies of two remarkable Aboriginal men – Douglas Grant and Balang T.E. Lewis.

“I’m thrilled to represent Macquarie at this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Having two of our films in a prestigious international festival is certainly a real coup and a fantastic opportunity to showcase our research more broadly across Australia,” says Tom.

“The Skin of Others explores the ways in which we as Australians tell the story of our national history – and the history of our national story.

“I hope that the film makes audiences feel, and consider, the long Aboriginal heritage that still connects First Australians to ancestral country. I also hope that the film is part of a conversation encouraging people to listen to and act on the wisdom of the world’s First Nations people who have long been trying to explain that it is essential to live in greater concert with the vast web of life around us.”

Among the finalists for the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films is Dr Karen Pearlman’s film I want to make a film about women which was supported by a Macquarie Research Seeding Grant. The third in a trilogy of films about Soviet women filmmakers, it aims to recover and re-position the creative and intellectual work of women in the development of film form.

“It means a great deal to me to be a finalist in such a rich field of contenders,” says Karen. “I want to make a film about women is a direct outcome of the exceptional environment created by Macquarie for creative practice research.

“The film is a love letter to Russian constructivist women. It brings to life revolutionary women artists of the 1920s and speculates on what they said, did, and might have created had it not been for Stalin’s suppression.

“I hope that audiences take away from it a sense of the creativity and ingenuity of these women and are inspired not only to search out their films and art works, but to question the histories in which their innovations and ideas have been overlooked.”

The Sydney Film Festival’s full program and tickets for all films are available now.

The course is continually growing in popularity, with 125 students in this year’s undergraduate Screen Production cohort (up from 80 students in 2016). Behind the success of the program is a unique approach to teaching that mimics real-world screen production processes, allowing students a long, slow planning period followed by a burst of activity in a four-day intensive filming session.

The intensive production stint is where the magic happens: Karen says she sees students rising to the challenge, forming teams, and collaborating and communicating effectively.

“The excitement during the intensive is palpable,” says Karen. “The students become teams through the intensity. Production requires alertness, fleetness, and focus, and they learn to problem-solve on the fly.

“It’s completely different to the way screen production is usually taught, with students normally trying to create their films in two-hour sessions once a week. Many students say they learnt more with us in four days than they do in an entire semester elsewhere.”

Iqbal has noticed this approach has eliminated many of the typical complaints about group members not contributing to groupwork tasks.

“The students understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and they have to self-regulate and be responsible to their team,” he notes. “They stop working for a mark and instead work with each other to achieve a collective vision.

“Murphy’s Law applies in screen production and so there will always be problems they need to work together to solve. Having this experience at university builds their leadership and communication skills, and prepares students well for future work.”

Both Karen and Iqbal have been in the arts for their entire careers. Karen started out as a dancer before moving into film-making, editing and screenwriting, while Iqbal has taught at all levels and worked as an artist across theatre and cinema.

But industries outside film and television are increasingly seeking screen production skills, with many emerging opportunities for graduates. Both Karen and Iqbal love giving students a taste of the industry, and inviting them to join them on a life-long journey of understanding screen language and production.

“Creating compelling video is a huge growth industry, and I’m very optimistic about our students’ futures,” says Karen. “On their first day, I welcome the students to the screen industry, and I see them rise to that. It is a delight to see them again after their first year when they have been through some of the intensive units, and they are so much more grown up and ready to create more mature work.

“It’s an extraordinary privilege to teach at Macquarie, and to be part of a faculty that is willing to experiment with different possibilities for teaching.”

Imagine if that instead of issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that abolished slavery, Abraham Lincoln decided to put the question of whether slavery was a good idea to a national vote.

America was in its third year of a brutal civil war, after all, which was partly a result of the battle between abolitionists and those who supported enslaving African-Americans.

How do you think that poll would have worked out? And what if he’d decided to give the advocates of slavery the money to fund a public campaign?

And therein lies the problem with leadership on core human rights issues. There will always be those who find reasons to defend the status quo despite compelling ethical arguments and do so in the face of majority support for change.

That’s where true political leadership comes in. Change will always be resisted by some elements in society.

We don’t just elect leaders to manage our economy. We elect them to put us on the right side of history and to uphold the values of liberal democracy. Those values, however flawed, are ones that espouse equality for everyone.

When it comes to marriage equality the ethical argument is compelling. Why, in a liberal democracy that separates church and state, would we deny people who love each other the right to be married?

Religious groups will still have the right to speak freely about their views – it’s enshrined in our Constitution in Section 116 – and we don’t believe in restricting religious freedom.

That doesn’t mean that everyone has to get married in a church. But there are now plenty of churches and other places of worship that will marry same sex couples.

One of the major problems with a plebiscite is that it is highly unlikely to result in Australians getting a more complete picture about why endorsing same sex marriage is important.

We live in a world where the public sphere is increasingly dominated by a series of polemic echo chambers. This debate, particularly if it was funded by the Federal Government, would quickly devolve into a shouting match. Worse, it would result in ugly homophobic attacks on LGBTI people.

Ethics, at its heart, is about respecting and embracing difference. That’s the best of what we do in a liberal democracy.

At our worst, we devolve into manning the gates and worrying about people who are different intruding into our status quo.

So talking of what it’s like to be different, let’s conjure with this scenario. You’re a five-year old girl who just started kindergarten. Most of the other kids have a mum and a dad. But you have two mums. Or two dads.

My colleague Catharine Lumby once wrote about an episode of Playschool which inflamed conservatives. It showed a little girl called Brenna who was featured in one of the short films young children watch through the Playschool windows.

The voiceover went this way: “I’m Brenna, that’s me in the blue. My mums are taking me and my friend Merin to an amusement park.” The ABC decided to include this segment after they were contacted by a same sex couple who said their daughter felt left out when it came to the way families were represented on television.

So here’s the real ethical dilemma. Do we want to watch our political leaders play politics with human rights – such as the right for someone like Brenna to feel accepted in the playground? Or, do we want them to acknowledge that same sex marriage is a human rights issue?

In the future, to put the most pressing question clearly: Do we want real leadership or more opinion polls?

What drew you to your research field?

Growing up at a time before the popularisation of social media, the TV screen was almost the only window for me to view and learn about the outside world. I recall a variety show introducing different countries that held me agog with interest. I was figuratively glued to it for many years. On graduation from university, I worked in the media industry for several years but my curiosity about the world and my place in it is what crystallised my decision to do a PhD.

My current research project is in an area where international communication, international relations and soft power overlap. My interest in international relations and soft power was kindled by my supervisor, Professor Naren Chitty. He has made significant contributions in all three fields. My research on his body of work made me realise that the perspective he has developed provides a useful platform to launch my own project and research.

What would be an ‘elevator pitch’ of your research area?

 Media discourse is an important element by which individuals construct meaning. My thesis project, taking China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative as a case study, investigates how a country’s discourse is constructed in different communities through international media and what elements influence the mechanism.

In layman’s terms, what is the wider impact of your research?

 I hope my research can firstly offer a better understanding between China and other communities that view China and Chinese culture as potential threats. This will contribute to a minimisation of misperceptions among different communities, and more importantly, can offer an analytical framework for understanding a country’s behaviour and its relations with other states.

Who has been your most significant research mentor?

 That would have to be my supervisor, Professor Naren Chitty. He is the kind of supervisor who can not only give you specific guidance on your research based on his experience in supervising dozens of PhD students, but also influence you in a more profound way. He draws on several genres of experience – including as a diplomat and scholar – which I believe to be one of the reasons behind his inclusiveness, innovativeness and depth and breadth of research. He has the magic to make many things happen.

What has been your favourite and/or proudest research moment?

My proudest moment in recent times was when, together with other team members, I was awarded first prize by the Henan Province Social Science Association for research on senior people’s media needs, uses and gratifications in the context of new media.

Register for Mei Li’s session/workshop ‘Soft Power: The Power of Attraction?’ as part of the Macquarie Minds Showcase 13-14 December 2016.

This week on the Pioneering Minds podcast we sit down with Dr Rowan Tulloch from the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies to discuss the stigma and changing nature of gamification, and its effects on education and gender representation.

“I think the main thing that gamification can give us as teachers is the possibility to open up a dialogue with students and to help guide them into the practices that we take for granted,” Rowan says.

Rowan’s innovative ‘The Game Change’ software recently won him a $50,000 prize in the Optus Future Makers competition. Read more about Rowan’s win on Macquarie’s Research Impact blog.

He also recently received an Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) citation (formerly known as an OLT citation). The national learning and teaching award comes with a $10,000 prize.

One of the world’s longest running film festivals, the 12-day festival is one of Sydney’s premier cultural events and attracts more than 176,000 attendees at 11 iconic venues.

The Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies has been instrumental in the planning of this partnership, which will specifically focus on women in film. As the Festival notes: “Women are directing less than 10 per cent of the 250 top grossing films worldwide. That figure underscores a known problem in the industry: women simply aren’t getting the same opportunities to share their voices and visions as their male counterparts.”

As part of the partnership. Professor Kathryn Millard – one of the University’s award-winning filmmakers – will host a discussion on 13 June with Academy Award-winning director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. Chinoy will discuss her personal experiences as a woman making films in Pakistan, following a screening of her film Journey of A Thousand Miles.

“Macquarie University has outstanding strengths in screen production and critical thinking in this field,” notes Kathryn.

“A deep engagement with the screen production and cultural sector is critical to our ability to keep re-imagining the future of cinematic storytelling and screen media. We are delighted to partner with Sydney Film Festival as it brings people together to view, discuss and passionately debate cutting-edge films from around the globe.”

Macquarie’s presence will also be included before screenings of 20 films by women throughout the festival. Macquarie Screen Studies lecturer Dr Ilona Hongisto says she is particularly thrilled about the diversity of this year’s festival program.

“From foundational works by the late Chantal Akerman to the ground-breaking cinema of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy – this edition of the Sydney Film Festival makes its mark with cinema that has the capacity to change the world,” she says.

To find out more about what’s on at this year’s festival, or to purchase tickets for film screenings and festival events, visit the Sydney Film Festival website.