Helen Newman - Filmmaker & Projection Artist

Helen Newman is a multi-award winning Australian filmmaker and projection artist whose work has taken her around the globe gathering stories from the inspiring to the heartbreaking. Trained in classical music she performed and taught piano for several years before completing further tertiary studies to work with survivors of violence and sexual abuse as a crisis counselor and in community development. Helen has established a reputation for delivering a wide variety of powerful stories told in unique and engaging ways through documentary and video art.

Helen has travelled to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Timor-Leste, the Thai-Burma border, Cambodia, America and across urban and remote Australia producing, filming and subsequently editing, projects that encompass individual and collective stories of conflict, poverty, oppression, celebration and survival. Her work also encompasses a range of performance based arts projects. The nature of her projects has led Helen to work with many varied and inspiring individuals and a wide variety of human rights, community, health and education based organisations in a range of situations; war zones, refugee camps, remote indigenous communities, amid protests and formal interview situations. Helen’s documentaries have screened on ABC TV, ABC iview, NITV and at a range of national and international film festivals.

Working with a variety of music and theatre groups Helen documents nationally and internationally acclaimed live performances and creates works as part of multi-platform performance-based projects.

Helen also collaborates with various community groups as a video artist, graphic designer, filmmaker, editor and facilitator of filmmaking workshops. These projects, developed in conjunction with a wide range of community based organizations, have led to a body of work encompassing education, health, science and the arts. Helen’s training and experience in projection mapping, VR filmmaking and drone footage has also allowed her to bring new technology and innovative techniques to her creative projects.

Helen’s current major project is ‘Solstice’, a multi award winning feature documentary the film is a determined, intimate and hopeful documentary that steps into the lives of those who are left behind when a person dies by suicide.

For more information: SOLSTICE DOCUMENTARY