Look at almost any film festival around the world in a given year and it’s often possible to see a theme emerge among the movies on the program.
Sometimes it’s the result of careful curation, but it can also be entirely organic or a reflection of broader trends in the screen industry.
Here’s hoping that last one is true of this year’s CinefestOZ program, which boasts a bumper crop of films showcasing the work of WA women.
Producer Brooke Silcox is premiering her new documentary, Jebediah: Are We OK? based on the beloved local indie rockers that dominated Triple J in the 90s with hits such as Harpoon and Leaving Home.
Dunsborough-based producer Chanel Bowen also has a documentary at Cinefest, Hard As Puck, which follows para ice hockey players competing to make the national team.
Cinefest is hosting the world premiere of director Kelly Bergsma’s timely doco about the invisible wounds of military service, Invisible Injuries.
Yawuru, Bardi and Kija filmmaker Kimberley Benjamin is unveiling her queer Indigenous short, GOAT, at the festival, and director Miranda Edmonds is screening her family film, Whale Shark Jack, as part of Cinefest’s schools program.
That’s quite a line-up.
“It feels incredibly meaningful to me,” Silcox tells STM.
“Particularly because I know how powerful it can be to see a woman doing something that you didn’t necessarily know was possible for you.”
The idea that “if you can see it, you can be it” was reinforced to Silcox by one of the subjects of her doco.
“One of the reasons I committed to making Jebediah: Are We OK? was the influence Ness Thorton from Jebediah had on me,” she admits.
“As a young woman, she was one of the first women in rock I really saw on stage. She wasn’t there as a frontwoman being asked to perform femininity or sexuality, she was just a woman playing bass in a band, alongside the other guys.
“That was incredibly important for me to see. It showed me that there was a place for women in music where you could simply be there because you were good at what you did.”
Bowen echoes the sentiment, applying it to screen productions she’d like to work on in the future.
“It’s kind of funny in 2026 because that should really be the norm, that there is equal representation and celebration,” she says.
She cites Benjamin’s short as a project that featured female representation in all the major production roles — writer, director and producer.
“I’d love to create a production team like that, and I’ve got incredible women that I collaborate with sometimes, but . . . I really look forward to the day when I get a full female team to collaborate with,” Bowen says.
Of course, it’s not just about gender when it comes to screen representation.
As a proud member of the disability community, the Hard As Puck producer knows other groups face even bigger challenges to achieve a fair go in the industry.
“I’ve definitely seen an increase in the desire for primarily disability representation in front of and behind the camera, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the market is uptaking it in the same way,” Bowen says.
“So, when you come with an authentic story such as Hard As Puck, because there’s no known faces in that film, it was a challenge to convince the market that this was something that they would be able to sell.”
Bergsma believes incremental progress is being made.
“I think there is also a much greater understanding now that representation isn’t simply about who appears on screen,” she says.
“It’s about who gets to write the story, who directs it, who produces it, who controls the budget and ultimately who is trusted to make the creative decisions.
“We need pathways that allow women and people from under-represented backgrounds to move from emerging filmmakers to established filmmakers, and to be trusted with bigger budgets, bigger productions and their second, third and fourth projects.”
The current industry roadblock that prevents under-represented groups parlaying early opportunities into a consistent career was also identified by Bowen.
According to Silcox, it’s no surprise, then, that women in the screen industry are finding their way into the factual segment.
“Some of the most powerful women I know in this industry lead through empathy, collaboration and relationship-building, while also being incredibly strategic when necessary,” Silcox explains.
“There is enormous power in being able to listen, negotiate and still know what you are trying to achieve and be firm on that direction.
“I think the documentary sector is an interesting reflection of that. There is a reason so many women have found their way into documentary — the work requires patience, emotional intelligence, resilience and an ability to build deep relationships.
“But it also requires enormous entrepreneurial and leadership skills. You’re often trying to finance something that doesn’t fit neatly into a commercial box, while protecting the integrity of the story and the people within it.”
This perfectly describes the challenge Bergsma faced in making Invisible Injuries.
“We were asking people to sit in front of a camera and speak openly about incredibly personal experiences, mostly very sensitive experiences,” she admits.
“You can’t manufacture or rush that. Sometimes being a filmmaker meant putting the schedule aside, putting the camera down and just being a human being first.
“There were definitely moments over the past two and a half years where I wondered how we were going to get it finished.”
For Silcox, the challenge was convincing prospective financial backers the story was worth telling.
“We were teenagers in the 90s, we lived through that music culture, we knew what Jebediah meant to people and, importantly, we knew their audience was far broader than many people assumed,” she says.
“One of the most frustrating parts of the financing process was hearing the film described as ‘niche’.
“Sometimes it felt like that came from people who simply hadn’t lived through that cultural moment and didn’t realise how deeply the band resonated across Australia.
“In the end, we had to make the film before we could properly finance it. We spent years quietly building it and by September 2025 we had a 100-minute rough cut we could put in front of people. That’s when everything changed.”
When you strip away the collective achievement of representing women in the screen industry, all these filmmakers have one thing in common — they want the work to speak for itself.
“I don’t expect somebody to watch one documentary and suddenly understand exactly what it feels like to live with PTSD, or be part of a family that deals with it, or to have served in the military,” Bergsma says of Invisible Injuries.
“But if we can all stop judging a book by its cover for just one second, perhaps a conversation can take place instead.”
Bowen is no less sincere about her subjects but expects audiences will have a very different experience with Hard As Puck.
“It’s a funny film,” she says. “I just really want people to go enjoy themselves, not leave with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
“The last few days at Melbourne International Film Festival, we’ve had a really good response, audiences laughing out loud, and we’re so happy with that.”
Silcox hopes people come to Jebediah: Are We OK? out of love for the band but leave thinking about themselves.
“For a generation who grew up in the 90s, I think there is enormous pleasure in reliving those details, but the nostalgia isn’t really the point of the film. It’s the doorway into something much more universal,” Silcox says.
“For us, it is much more a story about growing up, about the people we are when we are young, the decisions we make as we get older, and what happens to the friendships, ambitions and creative dreams that shaped us along the way.
“I think we live in a complicated world where we can become very focused on commercial or individual drivers, but ultimately we are human beings and we need each other. Friendship and family carry a responsibility that is sometimes much more important than anything else.”