The Film Makers
Sarah Barton
Sarah Barton is a filmmaker with more than 20 years’ experience and has focused mainly on making films about disability. Her first major film Untold Desires (1994) about sexuality and disability won the first Logie Award for SBS television and an AFI Award for most outstanding documentary.
In 2003 Sarah created and produced the first 70 episodes of the award winning disability community television series No Limits. During her time as series producer of No Limits Sarah mentored and trained a number of disabled performers including the late comedian and writer Stella Young.
Sarah’s short documentary Stroke A Chord (2012) about a choir of stroke survivors who can sing but not speak was a finalist in the ATOM Awards in 2013.
Between 2011 and 2015 Sarah worked as Chief Executive Officer of Disability Media Australia an organisation she co-founded in 2005. She also returned to No Limits in the role of Executive Producer mentoring and training disabled producers, cast and crew.
In 2015 Sarah returned to her production company Fertile Films to complete Defiant Lives and recently launched an online video distribution platform called DisabilityBusters.com
In 2010 Sarah received a Churchill Fellowship to travel to America and England to research a feature documentary about the disability rights movement. Screen Australia subsequently supported the project in 2015 and the film Defiant Lives is due for release in 2017.
Liz Burke
Liz Burke is an independent producer specialising in compelling, stylish and often political television and feature documentaries. Documentaries include, ‘Yuletide (2000) SBS, ‘Just Punishment’ (2006) ABC, ‘The First Wave’ (2008), ‘Missing in the Land of Gods (2012) and ‘Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip’ ABC (2014) Her films have won AFI and ATOM Awards.
‘Missing in the Land of Gods’ was nominated for Best Feature Documentary IDFA 2012, FOXTEL Best Australian Documentary, Sydney Film Festival 2012 and has been screened at many international and national film festivals. Life’.
Liz’s most recent documentary is ‘Defiant Lives’ which tells the story of the rise of disability activism in Australia, UK and USA. Liz also teaches into the BA of Film and Animation at Swinburne University of Technology. She is currently enrolled in a PhD at the University of Canberra researching the affordances of the transmedia documentary.
