Diversity in Practice

Ana Tiwary is a director/producer based in Sydney, Australia. She runs the production company indiVisual films which specialises in making multicultural content for mainstream audiences. Ana founded Diversity in Australian Media almost ten years ago, to keep moving the conversation about representation forward and to create an inclusive community. Ana holds a master's degree in film and television and her career has been shaped through her work on Bollywood films (India), at National Geographic Channel (USA) and producing numerous documentaries for ABC TV (Australia). In 2015, Ana was selected as SPA Ones to Watch producers and recently she was selected for the Seeing Ourselves, Screen Australia workshop. Ana is passionate about telling untold stories that bring the diversity of our streets to our screens in authentic and entertaining ways.

Kristy has a diverse career working across stage and screen as an Actor, Host and VO Artist. In 2016, Kristy became the channel host of Nickelodeon Australia, which has seen her host their new series Slime Cup, report from their live music festival SlimeFest, and co-host prank show Crash the Bash for Channel 10 and Nickelodeon. Kristy's most recent television credits include 'Mandy' on Neighbours, 'Kyra' on Here Come the Habibs, Dance Academy - The Comeback, Top of the Lake Season 2, and Legally Brown. On stage, Kristy most recently completed a sold-out season with the Griffin Theatre Company playing 'Cassie' in Benedict Andrews' Gloria.

Megan is the president of the not-for-profit organisation Women in Film & Television NSW. She is a writer, director, producer and company director of Crushed Film Pty Ltd and Hemlock & Cedar Films, and was previously co-chapter head of Sydney Film Fatales (female directors’ collective).

Her debut feature Crushed screened at a number of festivals including Montreal World Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, and Napa Valley Film Festival before completing a successful limited theatrical release in Australia. Crushed is now available digitally on Itunes, Google Play, Ozflix and other platforms.

Megan has also completed over a dozen short films and written a number of screenplays including The Last Reprieve, which was awarded the Grand Prize in the Greater Philadelphia SIP Screenplay competition, and Victory and Defeat which made the semi-finals in the Final Draft Big Break Competition.

Megan earned her Bachelor of Arts in Communication (Media Arts & Production) at University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and has completed both a Graduate Certificate in Screen Drama and a Graduate Diploma in Directing at the prestigious Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). In 2013, she also completed the Professional Screenwriters Program at UCLA.

Daniel Browning is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, documentary maker, sound artist and writer. Currently, he produces and presents Awaye!, the Indigenous art and culture program on ABC RN, a specialist radio network of Australia's national broadcaster. Awaye! surveys contemporary Indigenous cultural practice across the arts spectrum.

A visual arts graduate, Daniel is also a widely-published freelance arts writer. He is a former guest editor of Artlink Indigenous, an occasional series of the quarterly Australian contemporary arts journal. He is the curator of Blak Box, an immersive sound installation in the newly-redeveloped precinct on the western foreshore of Sydney Harbour.

He studied English and art history at the University of Queensland before graduating with a degree in visual arts from the Queensland University of Technology. Daniel is a descendant of the Bundjalung and Kullilli peoples of far northern New South Wales and south-western Queensland.
 

Bakri is a video-journalist, digital producer, creative content developer and poet. He was born in Madani, Sudan, and came to Australia as a political refugee in 2000. He grew up in Liverpool, in the multicultural communities of Western Sydney.

His journalistic background includes documenting activist movements and grassroots operations around Sydney and within NSW. He has recently delved into comedy, co-writing and co-producing a sketch shedding light on major issues in Australian discourse including racism, surveillance, and homophobia.

He is currently the managing producer for Raqib-Taskforce, a Muslim-led organisation dedicated to countering hate speech, Islamophobia, prejudice, and other extremist views in the public domain. He is currently completing an internship at ABC TV, working across all production departments while completing his Bachelor of Journalism at Macleay College.

Tasnim Hossain is a screenwriter, playwright and performance poet. She has worked with Goalpost Pictures on a show for SBS and attended Talent Camp NSW/ACT, a joint initiative between AFTRS, Screen Australia and Create NSW, supporting diverse storytellers for screen. She is currently part of Melbourne Theatre Company's Women in Theatre program, being mentored in dramaturgy and literary management, and was the 2017 Resident Playwright at the Australian Theatre for Young People.

Her short work has been staged by ATYP and Apocalypse Theatre Company in Sydney, 24:7 Theatre Festival in Manchester, UK, and published by Currency Press. Her first solo show was developed through Playwriting Australia's Lotus Salon for Asian-Australian writers and ran at Fringe World in Perth and You Are Here festival in Canberra in 2015. Her second solo show had seasons in Newcastle, Perth and Sydney across 2017 and 2018.

Tasnim has performed her poetry around Australia, and has also taught poetry writing and performance skills to young people at schools and community groups. She has a Bachelor of Arts (International Relations) from the Australian National University.

Fiona is an award winning writer, director, producer and developer. A graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, Fiona’s screen career includes a range of accomplishedshort films, screenwriting credits, script development roles and writer/director of the acclaimed ABC documentary Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip. As well, as being a creative practitioner, Fiona has worked in a range of leadership and educational roles across the screen, arts, literary and disability sectors.  From 2012 -2017, Fiona was Mentor-in-Residence on the award winning and international best practice model Write-ability program for writers with disability, a partnership between Writers Victoria and Arts Access Victoria. Fiona identifies as a person with disability and is a recipient of 2017 Screen Australia initiative Seeing Ourselves: Developing the Developer and Talent + programs. Fiona is passionate about bringing stories that encourage the importance of lived experience and authentic voices of disabled people and other marginalised groups to the screen.