Australian Shorts Competition: Session One
The Best Australian Short Documentary Competition highlights the best documentary short films from across the country with a runtime of 30 minutes or less. Antenna has partnered with the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) to offer the winning filmmaker a cash prize of $5,000 as development funding for their next project.
PITCH BLACK
Guillym Davenport | Australia | 2023 | 17 min
Three young men, embedded in the online ‘black-pill’ subculture
or ‘manosphere’, struggle to reckon with their actions. A chilling
docu-drama that unpacks how small acts online can lead to
horrific acts of violence offline.
PATRICIA IN THE DARK
Laura Hartley | UK | 2023 | 11 min
Born into a world where the word ‘transgender’ didn’t exist,
95-year-old Patricia spent most of her life longing for love and
acceptance but too afraid to reveal her true self.
UNDERCURRENTS: MEDITATIONS ON POWER
Margot Nash | Australia | 2023 | 20 min
Made from reimagined/recycled images and sounds from the
filmmaker’s archive and other found materials, Undercurrents is a
poetic essay film about the undercurrents of history playing out
in the present.
OUR INKED IDENTITY
Jaida Ngawaka | Australia | 2023 | 7 min
Practicing the art of tā moko an ocean away from his New
Zealand roots, Rangi Maika shares his experience of the art form
and what it means for the revival of Māori culture.
ABOVE WATER
Alexandra Walton | Australia | 2023 | 17 min
Invisible to us are commercial seafarers who have been
abandoned by their employers, ship owners and states. We hear
from several people who have been trapped on board these
floating prisons for months and years past their contracts.
EDEN ALONE SURPASSES THEE
Tom Chapman | Australia | 2023 | 20 min
Jarred by the loss of his closest friend, a farmer begins to mentor
at-risk local youth on Tasmania’s remote West Coast, an area
renowned for its poverty, low literacy and high suicide rates.