Interviews
"Documentary in a Virtual, Post-truth World," RealTime 137, Feb-March 2017
Dan Edwards talks to the director of the Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC), Andrew Wiseman, on the eve of the 2017 event, about the challenges facing contemporary documentary makers.
“ACMI Mark II: Museum of the future,” RealTime 136 (Dec-Jan 2013)
An interview with the innovative Katrina Sedgwick, currently director of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, formerly artistic director of the Adelaide Film Festival and Head of Arts at the ABC.
Cinematic Scar Tissue: An Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer on The Act of Killing, Senses of Cinema, 68, September 2013
An in-depth interview with Joshua Oppenheimer, director of the extraordinary documentary The Act of Killing, about the massacre of communists, other leftists, and ethnic Chinese that ushered in Indonesia's "New Order" in 1965.
Reframing the World, RealTime e-edition, 8 May 2013
An interview with Sari Braithwaite, programmer of Melbourne's Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.
Hope and Survival in the Back of a Van, RealTime, 113, February-March 2013
An interview with Indigenous Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) about his new installation, Mother Courage, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
“If They Won’t Make It, I Can”: An Interview with Documentarian, Hu Jie, ArtSpace China, 1 August 2012
An interview with Hu Jie, one of China's most controversial independent documentary makers. Hu directed "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul" and "Though I Am Gone," two films looking at suppressed incidents from the Maoist era.
"Every Official Knows What the Problems Are:" An Interview with Chinese Documentarian Zhao Liang, Senses of Cinema, 15 July 2012
An interview with one of China's most acclaimed documentary makers, Zhao Liang, whose films Petition and Crime and Punishment will screen at the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival as part of the "Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos" program curated by Dan Edwards.
CinemaTalk: A Conversation with Ou Ning, dgenerate Films blog, March 1, 2011
Interview with the Chinese artist, writer, curator and documentary filmmaker Ou Ning, director of the acclaimed Sun Yuan Li and Meishi St.
Interview with Chinese photographer and Director of Beijing's Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Rong Rong
Rong Rong has been a key figure in Chinese photography since his pioneering work in Beijing's East Village in the early 1990s. He now runs the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Caochangdi in northeast Beijing with his wife, the Japanese photographer Inri.
Interview with translator Harvey Thomlinson
Harvey is a British Hong Kong-based translator, who produced the English version of Murong Xuecun’s Leave Me Alone – A Novel of Chengdu recently published by Australia’s Allen & Unwin. A Chinese literary enthusiast, Harvey has also run the Make Do Studios website for several years, featuring profiles of mainland Chinese authors and translations of sample chapters from their work. More recently, he has established a publishing imprint in Hong Kong specialising in bringing contemporary mainland Chinese authors to an English-reading audience.
Interview with artist Shirin Neshat
A slightly longer version of an interview with Iranian artist Shirin Neshat that was originally published on The Beijinger website. Neshat's video series Women Without Men was exhibited in the 798 Art Zone, Beijing, from October 2008 to March 2009. Dan Edwards wrote about the exhibition for The Beijinger.
Interview with Zhang Ga, curator of Synthetic Times
A previously unpublished interview with artist, academic and curator Zhang Ga, who curated the Synthetic Times new media exhibition at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing, in mid-2008. Dan wrote about Synthetic Times for RealTime.
Interview with Brian Wallace, director and owner of Red Gate art gallery, Beijing
A previously unpublished interview with Brian Wallace, director and owner of Red Gate, the first foreign-owned commercial art gallery on the Chinese mainland. Dan wrote about Red Gate for China Today, and interviewed Wallace in Beijing on 31 January, 2008.
Interview with Australian director Matthew Saville (Noise, Roy Hollsdotter Live), AFC News, April 2006
A few days after Matthew Saville completed shooting his debut feature Noise, Dan Edwards spoke to him about the film and taking the script through the SP*RK scriptwriting workshop.
Interview with Australian Indigenous filmmaker Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds), AFC News, May 2006
On the eve of the 2006 Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival, Dan Edwards spoke to Ivan Sen about his new film Shifting Shelter 3, and the recurring themes in his work.
Interview with Australian director Rowan Woods (The Boys, Little Fish), AFC News, Aug 2005
Dan Edwards talks to Rowan Woods about the research and development process behind Little Fish, shortly before the film's release in Australia. Little Fish starred Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving.
Cover art for the English-language edition of Leave Me Alone – A Novel of Chengdu by Murong Xuecun, translated by Harvey Thomlinson. Dan's interview with Harvey can be found here.
Ben Ballangarry (left, one of the subject's of Ivan Sen's documentary Shifting Shelter 3) and Australian director Ivan Sen, interviewed by Dan Edwards for AFC News.