What Happens After the Film is Made? Discoverability in Australian Screen Culture

You’ve made a film, what’s next? This panel brings together leading voices from across Australia’s screen culture sector to discuss the visibility of local content in today’s rapidly changing screen landscape. Amid significant technological change and increasingly globalised viewing habits, the panel asks whose stories are being seen, who they reach, and why Australian perspectives — particularly those historically marginalised — continue to matter.

Panelists will consider the shifting role of film festivals and other exhibition spaces as cultural curators, community builders, and pathways for emerging and underrepresented voices, alongside the influence of screen publications in shaping critical discourse, preserving screen histories, and expanding audience understanding. Together, they will explore the importance of a diverse screen culture ecology — encompassing festivals, criticism, education, archives, platforms, and independent exhibition — and what is at stake when access, representation, or visibility within that ecosystem is diminished or goes unsupported.

At the heart of the conversation is the challenge of discoverability in an environment shaped by algorithms, streaming platforms, and global content flows. The panel will discuss how cultural institutions, media, and policy can play an active role in amplifying underrepresented Australian work, ensuring it can be found, contextualised, and valued, now and into the future.

This event will be Auslan interpreted.

Event image: Alexandre Bucquet (CC 3.0)