Allan Collins is an Indigenous filmmaker from Alice Springs. His career began at Imparja Television, where he worked his way up from production assistant to cameraman. Between 1993 and 1998 he worked with CAAMA as senior cameraman, before moving to Sydney to study cinematography at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

Allan's credits include Road (directed by Catriona McKenzie) which won the award for Best Cinematography in an Australian Short at Flickerfest and an Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) Gold Award. He won an ACS Silver Award for his work on Dust and a Gold Award (South Australia/Western Australia) for Mistake Creek.

Allan's first feature film as cinematogragher, Beneath Clouds, was released in May 2002.

Donna Ives has 11 years' experience in video production: ten with the Townsville Aboriginal & Islander Media Association at Big Eye Productions, and one with her own company, Yarmuk Enterprises.

At Big Eye Productions, she was producer, director and writer from 1993 to 1999 and from 1997 to 1999 also acting executive producer, working on a number of documentaries.

Selected credits include Hey, Look Out Show Me! (writer) for the Australian Library Association, encouraging Indigenous people to access libraries, and Talkabout (production manager), a one-off drama for Centrelink, Canberra. She also directed electoral commercials encouraging Indigenous viewers to vote, which aired on television stations broadcasting to the Torres Strait Islands.

Her awards include an Encouragement Award from the Women on Women Festival and an Honorable Mention at DOCO 2000 Awards for her 13-minute documentary A Memory, which she wrote and directed for SBS-TV on the abuse of children on Aboriginal reserves.

Darlene Johnson is a filmmaker from the Dunghutti tribe of the east coast of New South Wales, who graduated with BA (Hons), specialising in Indigenous and post-colonial cinema, from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Her first drama Two-Bob Mermaid was part of an Aboriginal anthology, From Sand to Celluloid, which involved first-time Indigenous filmmakers. The film won the Australian Film Critics Circle Award for Best Australian Short Film (1996). It was nominated at the Venice Film Festival for the Baby Lion Award and won the Best Dramatic Short Film at the 41st Asia-Pacific Film Festival.

In 2000 Johnson wrote and directed Stolen Generations, her first hour-long television documentary. The film was nominated for an International Emmy (2000) and for Best Documentary at the 2000 AFI awards. It screened at the 2000 Margaret Mead Film Festival and was a finalist in the Hollywood Black Film Festival. Stolen Generations won the journalist award for Best Documentary at Film De Femmes International Women's Film Festival in France and the Golden Gate Award in the History section of the 2001 San Francisco Film Festival.

Darlene recently directed a documentary about the making of Phillip Noyce's feature, Rabbit Proof Fence. She is currently writing and directing another documentary about the life of Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil and her first feature film, Obelia, which will be produced by Phillip Noyce.

Catriona McKenzie recently graduated from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School with an MA (Hons) in Directing. She attended the New York Film School (TISCH) in 1996 and has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales. Catriona has over eight years' experience in the film industry and has directed the documentaries Rites of Passage and Bunje for ABC-TV. Her drama work includes The Third Note, awarded Best Short Drama at the 2001 Torino Film Festival, and Road, which won the award for Best Direction, Australian Drama at Flickerfest 2000.

Danielle MacLean worked at CAAMA Productions for over six years: first as a production assistant and then as a writer/director.

She spent considerable time in Central Australia on a documentary series called Nganampa Anwernekenhe, produced in Aboriginal language and shot in the bush communities. The series was broadcast on Imparja Television, whose main audience is people from that language group or tribe.

Danielle has also written and directed a short drama My Colour Your Kind, which screened at numerous international film festivals, and for which she was nominated for an AFI Award and a Film Critics of Australia Award.

Since leaving CAAMA Productions in 1999, Danielle has been a freelance writer/director. She is currently directing a 50-minute drama for SBS and the Australian Film Commission.

mitch torres has extensive experience as a director, writer, journalist and radio broadcaster as well as a thorough knowledge of her hometown, Broome. She recently completed a half-hour documentary Bungarun Orchestra, which will screen on ABC-TV. Her film Jijas gotta voice (Sisters got a voice), about the centenary of women's suffrage, will tour as part of an exhibition.

Jeffrey Bruer is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and editor. He has worked on all Macumba Media Productions since 1988 and edited most of them. The documentaries he has edited and/or written have won many awards, including a Gold Mobie for Women Heal Women in 1995, two Human Rights Awards for Maria and The Raid, a Dendy Award for Maria and an AFI Award for Witch Hunt. He was associate producer/editor on Wrap Me Up in Paperbark for Macumba Media Enterprises (ABC-TV), and co-producer and editor on Saltwater Bluesman, the pilot for Everyday Brave.

His recent projects include a documentary on opera singer Yvonne Kenny and the Film Australia National Interest Program Welcome to the Waks Family.

Priscilla Collins has been a producer at CAAMA Productions in Central Australia for ten years. After completing her Master of Arts in Producing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, she returned to CAAMA Productions in 2000 as executive producer.

Priscilla was executive producer of Series Four of the National Indigenous Documentary Fund (NIDF), broadcast on ABC Television and series producer of NIDF Series One to Three, which were broadcast on ABC and SBS.

Rod Freedman has over 20 years' film and television experience as a multi-skilled producer, director, production manager, researcher and writer. After starting his career at Film Australia, he has worked for the past 15 years in the independent sector. As both producer and director, he has won numerous Australian and international awards.

In 1998 Rod formed his own company, Change Focus Media. As well as directing and producing corporate videos, he has produced a half-hour documentary, Wrap Me Up In Paperbark for Macumba Media Enterprises for the ABC and was the producer, director and writer of Uncle Chatzkel, an award-winning one-hour Film Australia documentary. He has recently produced and directed One Last Chance-War Criminal, which has won three awards in the United States.

Rod is currently producing and directing the ninth series in Film Australia's Australian Biography project.

John Macumba is one of the pioneers of Indigenous media in Australia. As a radio broadcaster in Alice Springs in the late 1970s, he was one of the first Aboriginal voices on the public airwaves. He was the prime mover behind the establishment of CAAMA in 1981-82, and then - as a consultant under contract to the ABC - he went on to set up Umeewarra Media in Port Augusta in 1989.

John was a member of the Ministerial Task Force on Remote Broadcasting in 1982 and a consultant to the Dix Committee's Review of Public Broadcasting in the same year. He was the Founding Chairman of the National Aboriginal and Islander Broadcasting Association (NAIBA), which was the forerunner to National Indigenous Media Association (NIMAA).

John set up Macumba Media Enterprises Pty Ltd in 1986, as a private venture. His efforts in developing and promoting Indigenous media were recognised by NIMAA in 1995 when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award (one of the few occasions that this award has been made). He received another NIMAA award in 1999 in recognition of his services to Indigenous media.

The six-part Everyday Brave series was designed not only to celebrate Indigenous Australian achievers but also to offer production opportunities and skills development to Indigenous filmmakers.

• About the filmmakers
• About the production companies
• Behind the scenes: production stories
• Back to Indigenous Voices Showcase home

For more about the series and specific episodes, see our program detail pages where you can also purchase video copies online:

• Everyday Brave: The Series
• For Who I Am-Bonita Mabo
• Jetja Nai Medical Mob-Naomi Mayers
• Media Nomads-The Thaiday Brothers
• Mistake Creek-Steven Craig
• Saltwater Bluesman-Uncle Kiddo Taylor
• Stranger in My Skin-Ray Cotti

Download a copy of the Everyday Brave teachers notes (Acrobat pdf, 392kb)

Download a copy of the Everyday Brave press kit (Word file, 336k) which includes:

• synopses
• production stories
• filmmaker biographies
• full credit list

for each episode

Note: detailed information is available for many titles in press kits that are downloadable from program detail pages.