Deborah Kingsland has been gracing Canberra audiences with the finest documentaries from around the world for nearly a decade. She is the founder and co-director of the Stronger than Fiction (STF) documentary film festival.

Deborah first began toying with the idea after she had returned to Canberra to spend time with her parents while teaching film at CIT. The majority of her students were into Hollywood and Disney, hoping to make the next superhero film. With her background in documentary making, she thought she would take a chance and introduce them to one that she loved, The English Surgeon, which follows the friendship of an English and a Ukrainian brain surgeon, going on trips to do operations; one of those in the film featured a patient having to say awake during the procedure.

The chance paid off and her students loved the film. With that success under her belt, Deborah figured if she could get them interested in the genre, then why not try and reach the wider Canberra community.  

“Canberra is a DIY city, there is no way I would start a film festival in London, Melbourne or even Sydney,” she said.

The first Stronger than Fiction film festival was held at Acton in 2013. Since 2019, the festival has called Dendy home, something they love as they are given access to the premium lounge for audiences to gather after screenings.

“People get a chance to meet new people. Canberra’s famous for being quite difficult to do that.”

“It’s been nice now that we’re in the monthly format seeing the same people come to different screenings and meet each other over the months,” Hannah de Feyter agreed.

Also a film maker, Hannah is Deborah’s co-director and joined the festival as a volunteer in 2017 after returning to Canberra and not feeling connected to a creative community. Quickly the pair realised they were kindred spirits; Deborah was a big fan of a play Hannah had produced called Vinegar Tom. Hannah believes she is a true testament to the festival’s appeal, saying she has grown to love the genre.  

“It’s the most interesting frontier of film making, people can really just grab a camera and tell their own stories. It’s the people who are the most passionate about film and storytelling, because they are making these films for no money,” Hannah said.

This sentiment is echoed by Deborah who explains that with fiction productions there are more people involved, those with the money telling them what can and can’t be done.

Like many events, the festival was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, having to cancel altogether in 2020. The festival format also changed last year; no longer showing in a condensed roster over a couple of weeks, now they show two screenings of one documentary each month.

“We’ve done our intense watching; people want to come out and have more than a screening. A social experience is what we offer and it’s very special because if you’re new to Canberra or you’re on your own and you can to the premium lounge, you know that everybody you’re looking at in this space has just seen that film,” Deborah said.

The new format has been welcomed by the loyal audience members with a poll saying that even if they could go back to the way it was before, they wouldn’t want to.

STF is proud to offer more than just a screening; their after-screening events often include filmmakers, some from overseas, members from communities shown in the film, or someone who can offer a deeper understanding or perspective on an issue.

For their last film, they invited the head of mission at the Ukrainian Embassy who stayed for a long time after the film, talking to people who attended, answering questions about the ongoing conflict in the country.

When deciding what films to show Canberra audiences, Deborah and Hannah watch an enormous number of documentaries from film festivals around the globe. Hannah laughs, saying she loves it when they disagree. If they can’t decide after talking it through, they will invite someone from the Canberra community who may have an interest or tie to the film to add extra perspective.

One that they didn’t disagree on is their next film, Midwives, which Hannah says is a quintessential STF film. Filmed in Myanmar, it follows two women: a Buddhist midwife and her Muslim trainee. Over the course of five years as the political situation in the country worsens, you see it play out in the lives of the women, in their relationship, and how their goals and dreams change. 

“It would be very easy to try to sell this movie as a story of women banding together against the odds, but it doesn’t do it justice. These two women have a complicated relationship; the Buddhist is sort of casually quite cruel to her trainee, but they also clearly really love each other and have a lot of respect,” Hannah said.

The filmmaker is from Myanmar herself and often risked her life and liberty to make the documentary, smuggling the camera past checkpoints to be able to get into villages and film.

They had arranged to offer a childcare service for the screening of Midwives, which would allow parents to drop their children in the Dendy foyer for activities while the adults watch the film and enjoy the post-screening gathering. While this has been cancelled due to the surge in Covid cases, they hope to be able the service for select screenings in the future.  

To keep up to date with the films and the festival, head to strongerdocs.com

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