Rachel Landers
Rachel Landers is a filmmaker with a PhD in history. Her films have screened all over the world and won a number of prestigious awards. In 2011/12 she received the NSW Premier’s History Fellowship and was appointed Head of Documentary at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. In 2018 she was appointed Head of Media Arts and Production and Animation Production at UTS, Sydney, Australia. She is currently working on several film projects including one in her capacity as a 2023 Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences research fellow. She will publish the monograph Hybrid Documentary and Beyond for Routledge in 2023.
Recasting History: Democratizing Foundational History Narratives through Innovative Creative Production Documentary Research and Practice
Like many Western nations, many of Australia’s foundational history narratives are white and male. These moments remain critically essential to understanding aspects of Australia’s liberal democracy but have become increasingly fraught. They are perceived by young diverse audiences as boring and irrelevant. There is substantial research that communities increasingly receive their information about the past via audio visual communication. However, unlike the bold, deep and inclusive innovations in contemporary written history little of this invention has been echoed in the corresponding output of broadcast history/science documentary. The latter is dominated by conventional and rigid expositional mimetic forms, featuring talking head experts, reenactment and or archive instead of audio visual forms that challenge the established knowledge and beliefs or connect with marginalized audiences.
Exploring Mawson is a hybrid documentary research pilot project investigating how innovative non-fiction film theories and techniques can revitalise audience reception when applied to narratives that aim to decolonise and democratise science and history. The project investigates little known aspects of the first Australian Antarctic Expedition 1911 -1914. The research applies hybrid cinematic theories through diversity casting and integrates ecological and scientific discoveries, climate change and astronomical reports and archival material so the past and present are synthesized in innovative, inclusive, and impactful ways.