On the panel was Emma Freeman, a familiar name but not such a familiar face. Freeman has gone from being the first woman to win Tropfest with a short film to directing more than 60 hours of television drama including Love My Way, Offspring, all episodes of Glitch and the recent Secret City.
She is currently in preproduction on a feature film, The Circus, to be produced by Leanne Tonkes, the second member of the panel, whose first feature was My Mistress in 2014. The third member of the panel, chaired by Lisa French of RMIT University, was researcher Amanda Coles who provided an overview of the ecology of gender and diversity issues in film and television with research she has conducted in Canada.
