The Walkley Documentary Award

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Now in its fifth year, the Walkley Documentary Award (supported by Linc Energy) recognises excellence in documentary production grounded in the principles of journalism – accuracy, impact, public benefit, ethics, creativity, research and reporting – together with rigorous film-making.

Eligible documentaries may be in-depth examinations of issues of local, national or international importance, explore contemporary or historic events and include investigative, biographical and first person stories reflecting the emotion and drama of the human experience. Each year, The Walkley Foundation showcases winners and finalists at festivals around the country and internationally.

Who can enter the Walkley Documentary Award?

Eligibility: Any non-fiction film made for cinema, broadcast or web release with a running time of at least 40 minutes and a maximum time of three hours, not including entirely or scripted or improvised fictionalisations of actual events. If the documentary is part of a series that exceeds the three-hour limit entrants must choose the three hours of content they wish to be judged on i.e the first three episodes.

Entries that have appeared within regularly scheduled television current affairs programs must be documentary in nature and execution.

Number of entrants: The named entrant(s) should be the individual(s) most involved in the key journalistic and creative aspects of the filmmaking process. A maximum of three persons may be designated as entrants, at least one of whom must be the credited director who exercised directorial control.

You must submit six DVD copies of the work entered.

2015 Key Dates:

Entries open: Wednesday July 1
Entries close: Monday August 31 at 5pm
Long list announced (via press release): September 22
Shortlist announced: October 15
Winner announced at the 60th annual Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism: December 3

Code of Silence wins the 2014 Walkley Documentary Award

Dan Goldberg and Danny Ben-Moshe have won the 2014 Walkley Documentary Award for their work “Code of Silence”

Code of Silence is the story of a fight for an investigation into allegations of child sex abuse at an Orthodox Jewish boys’ school in Melbourne. As the case against the abusers continues to make news, the documentary is timely and groundbreaking. Danny Ben-Moshe and Dan Goldberg followed the story for a year from July 2013, the only TV crew to gain access to courtrooms. Manny Waks, the former pupil of the boys’ school who blew the whistle on the rabbis he claimed covered up abuse, left his religion as a result of his abuse, and his orthodox father was shut out by his community. Waks’ perpetrator was jailed, but Waks hopes a royal commission may yet bring to account the rabbis he alleged covered up the abuse.

Judges’ comments: “Code of Silence is a documentary exposure of an Orthodox Jewish family’s distressing struggle to tell the truth about child sexual abuse within a well-known Melbourne boys’ school. The work is exceptional because of the access negotiated with key players as the drama unfolded. It contributes to public understanding of the magnitude of the failure across institutions, both religious and secular, to protect children because of a more dominant reputational defensiveness. Through actuality and interview, the documentary effectively breaks the “code of silence” which had prevailed to cover up abuse in this close-knit community.”

The prize was announced at the 59th Walkley Awards on December 4.

The 2014 Walkley Documentary Award judges were…

Ruth Dexter, producer, Lateline, ABC
Tom Zubrycki, producer/director
Kingston Anderson, executive director, Australian Directors Guild
Jenny Hocking, ARC Professorial Fellow and biographer
Belinda Hawkins, senior journalist, Australian Story, ABC TV
Christina Alvarez, CEO, Metro Screen
Helen Dalley, anchor, Sky News and Sky News Business
Quentin Dempster, ABC, Chair Walkley Advisory Board

The work of all three finalists will also be screened at the Walkley Foundation’s Stories from Australia Festival in New Delhi in early 2015.

For media enquiries contact: Walkley Foundation awards manager Lauren Dixon on (02) 9333 0913

Past Winners

**2013: Martin Butler and Bentley Dean, First Footprints, Contact Films/ABC TV**

In 2013, Martin Butler and Bentley Dean won the Walkley Documentary Award for First Footprints – a televisual archaeological ‘dig’ which comprehensively explores the history of Aboriginal tribal structures and land management techniques which prevailed for 50,000 years on the land mass which became known as the island continent of Australia.

**2012: Celeste Geer, Then the Wind Changed, Rebel Films/ABC TV**

Celeste Geer is an independent filmmaker based in a small bush town just outside Melbourne. Throughout her incarnations as a lawyer, academic and mother, the one constant in Celeste’s working life has been her desire to tell powerful stories. A graduate of the VCA, School of Film and TV (1999), Celeste also worked at AFTRS. Her documentaries are intimate, character-based films that explore the complexities and frailties of the human condition: Mick’s Gift (ABCTV 2002), Veiled Ambition (SBS 2006) and Then The Wind Changed (2011). She is currently working on the acclaimed online digital stories project Big Stories Small Towns. In 2012 she won the Walkley Award for Best Documentary.

**2011: Darren Dale, Tony Krawitz and Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man, Blackfella Films**

Darren Dale began his career with SBS Television in 1997. He produced short films Mimi and Flat, both of which screened at numerous overseas festivals including Sundance and Edinburgh. He has co-curated the film program for the Message Sticks Indigenous Festival at the Sydney Opera House since 2002. Since 2001 Darren has been a company director of Blackfella Films, Australia’s premier Indigenous production company. Darren also produced, together with Rachel Perkins, the landmark multi-platform history series First Australians, broadcast on SBS in 2008 to over 2.3 million viewers. Following the premiere of The Tall Man at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival, he produced Mabo, a telemovie written by Sue Smith and directed by Rachel Perkins (Bran Nue Dae, First Australians).He also produced two series of Redfern Now, a drama series for the ABC, overseen by renowned UK writer Jimmy McGovern.

Chloe Hooper won a Walkley Award for her writing on the inquest into the death of Cameron Doomadgee, published in The Monthly and internationally. Her first novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime, also received critical acclaim around the world.

Tony Krawitz wrote and directed the film Jewboy which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and went on to screen at many major festivals including Pusan, Jerusalem and Sundance. For television he has directed on The Surgeon for Channel Ten and City Homicide and All Saints for Channel Seven. Tony was the second unit director on the telemovie The Silence for ABC TV. He also directed Dead Europe, based on the book by Christos Tsiolkas.

Walkley Documentary Touring Program

As with the Australian and international writers festivals, the Walkley Foundation partners with film and cultural festivals to showcase the work of documentary film-makers drawn from winners and finalists of the Walkley Documentary Award.

International Film Festivals

In September 2015, the Walkley Foundation will host the biennial Stories for Australia Documentary Festival in New Delhi in partnership with the India International Centre and the PSBT to showcase the past two years of documentary winners and finalists.

Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF)

The 2014 Walkley Documentary Award finalists and their work featured in a Walkley Documentary Showcase as part of BIFF. Three finalists screened their work and engaged in a Q&A with Walkley Board chair Quentin Dempster.

To find out more about any of these programs, contact Lauren Dixon on +61 2 9333 0913