Making Do: SSAAANZ Conference 2026
Description
The 6th Biennial Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (SSAAANZ) will take place at The University of Melbourne between 1st and 4th December, 2026.
This year's SSAAANZ Conference marks 10 years since the first Biennial conference under the SSAAANZ banner was held in Wellington, NZ. With a theme of "Making Do", this year's conference brings together screen academics and practitioners from across Australia, New Zealand and the world to explore the creative, subversive and abundant possibilities of making do in screen studies and screen cultures.
The conference will include an ECA & HDR Pre-conference (1 December) followed by the three day SSAAANZ conference (2-4 December). The Conference reception will take place from 7:00pm at Residence @ the Potter and will include Canapes and an open bar (wine, beer, non-alcoholic beverages).
Registration categories include:
Salaried - for employed staff ($400 early bird, $450 full)
Salaried, NZ - for employed staff based in New Zealand ($350 early bird, $400 full)
HDR/Unwaged - for students and precariously employed ($250)
Conference reception ($80)
Early bird registration is open until 30 September, 2026.
Regular registration required by 1 November to confirm catering and program.
All ticket prices are inclusive of GST and booking fees.
Please note: all SSAAANZ conference participants must be current members. The SSAAANZ membership year runs July to June. Sign up via the SSAAANZ website. You will be asked for proof of membership at checkout.
Full program will be released 9 November. Delegates must have registered for the conference to be included in conference program.
Keynote Speakers
Prof. Bliss Cua Lim
Professor at the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Prof. Bliss Cua Lim is the author of Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic and Temporal Critique (2009) and a member of the Editorial Collective of Camera Obscura and the Advisory Board of Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication. Her recent book, The Archival Afterlives of Philippine Cinema (Duke University Press, 2024), analyzes the crisis-ridden history of film archiving in the Philippines. She is a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, published by Duke University Press, and serves on the Advisory Board of Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media and Society published by the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication.
Prof. Dan Golding
Professor of Media and Head of Media Section at Monash University, the host of Screen Sounds on ABC Classic, and an award-winning composer and writer. Dan is the author of Star Wars After Lucas (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), and with Leena van Deventer the co-author of Game Changers (Affirm Press, 2016). He also created the soundtrack for the BAFTA, DICE, and GDCA winning Untitled Goose Game (2019), which became the first game soundtrack to be nominated for an ARIA award in history, along with multiple other highly esteemed compositions for games, screen and podcasts. Dan co-hosts the popular film music podcast Art of the Score, and in 2018, presented What Is Music for ABC iView and Triple J with Linda Marigliano. He regularly hosts events and concerts, and has worked with every major Australian symphony orchestra to present to audiences in their thousands at the Sydney Opera House, Hamer Hall, and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. For fifteen years Dan has written journalism and commentary for a wide variety of publications, is a video essayist, and was director of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival (2014-2017).
Libby Hakaraia
Libby Hakaraia (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Ngāti Kapu) heads Māoriland Films with a slate of projects in development. Her producing credits include the feature films Cousins (2022) and Kōkā (2024). Libby has directed five shorts that have screened worldwide and produced 32 short films through Māoriland. Honoured as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to media and film, Libby is also a Merata Mita Sundance Fellow and recipient of the WIFT Entrepreneur Award. In 2025, Māoriland was awarded the Global Production Award for Economic and Social Impact, and Libby was inducted into the Kapiti Business Hall of Fame for her contribution to the regional economy.
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