RACE: Confronting the Program Makers’ Last Taboo
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 3
session room: Savoy 2
The recent SBS series The First Australians is written, produced and directed by Indigenous filmmakers. Conventional Australian history looks shockingly different. Channel 4’s new series Race: Science’s Last Taboo reframes multicultural concerns into prime time viewing to electrifying effect. Germany’s GRUPPE5 makes a history of South Africa. Thirteen/WNET commissions Faces of America. National Geographic makes The Human Family Tree.
As diversity takes an increasingly powerful position in the schedule, new questions arise. Are we all now multicultural commentators or do we still come with a set of cultural bifocals? Are there still limits on who should or who can talk on behalf of whose culture? Does On Tour with the Queen take on a different perspective because our tour guide is of African descent? Does the indigenous story CONTACT lose anything because its makers are white?
We discuss a number of this year’s films to debate whether some cultural landscapes or sensitive areas of scientific enquiry are still off limits or whether these sensitivities have led in the past to important stories being marginalized. Is diversity the new white in program scheduling?
Session Producer
Judy Rymer, Producer, Rymer Childs (Australia)
Moderator
Susan Moylan-Coombs, Executive Producer, Indigenous Programmes Unit, ABC (Australia)
Panelists
Richard Bradley, Managing Director, Lion Television (UK)
Maryanne Culpepper, Executive Vice President, Development, National Geographic Television (USA)
Darren Dale, Producer, Blackfella Films (Australia)
Bentley Dean, Producer and Director, Contact Films (Australia)
Ralph Lee, Head of Specialist Factual, Channel 4 (UK)