MEET THE FILMMAKER: Sunday July 19, 6.20pm. Join the filmmakers live in-cinema for a post-screening Q&A.

Three different Australian photographers, each with a different photographic style, discuss their lives and their work.

Ruth Maddison - Feminist Photographer. Born in Melbourne into a Russian-Jewish migrant family, Ruth grew up in St Kilda. Her father was a prominent political peace activist monitored constantly by ASIO. Ruth became politicised by feminism in the 1970s and picked up a camera alongside Ponch Hawkes. Many of her early photos reflected the alternative arts and ‘left-wing’ environment she was living in within Melbourne. And from early on she also started hand-colouring her prints, including her first series Christmas Holidays with Bob’s Family (1977-78). Ruth continued her social documentary work after moving to Eden, NSW in 1996, with a series on local teenagers, as well as series focusing on the fishing industry and the timber industry, the two major workplaces in the town.

Ashlee Jansen - Underwater Photographer. Born and raised in Melbourne, Ashlee developed a love for the ocean at an early age. After many years traveling, developing skills and improving my knowledge on the ocean, in 2022 she was named the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. With a young baby she is now based in Exmouth, Western Australia living her dream job as an underwater photographer on the Ningaloo Reef.

Michael Cook - Indigenous Art Photographer. Michael is an Aboriginal Australian artist of Bidjara heritage. He was raised in Hervey Bay by adoptive parents who were not Indigenous but brought him up to value and nurture his Aboriginal identity. Michael uses his camera as the ‘third eye’, bridging European and Indigenous worlds and perspectives. His images are carefully crafted and often multilayered, sumptuous and fantastical. Michael won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, the Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography People’s Choice Award, and was also a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize. His artworks are held in all major Australian collections and in significant international collections, and was exhibited in 2025 at Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, and at the Paris Art Fair in late 2025.