Miriam Katsambis: 2018 Natalie Miller fellowship acceptance speech

Thank you for the amazing honour of this selection.

I am absolutely thrilled and rapt, and genuinely overwhelmed, to be selected as the 2018 Natalie Miller Fellow. It is an incredible privilege to be connected to the spectacular work and legacy of Natalie Miller in a way, for which I’m very very grateful.

And congratulations to Sue, the committee, and the Patrons of the Natalie Miller Fellowship for 7 years of recognition and nurturing of the next generation of female leaders in the Australian screen community. Past recipients are outstanding in their fields, and I’m especially humbled to be invited to join this alumni that you’re gathering over time

Can I add that supporting the professional development goals of women in the Australian screen industry is as vital now as it has ever been. We have been speaking for such a long time about the need for more women and diversity across the screen industry and whilst I think we have become much better at describing and explaining the obstacles that often stand in our way, we still have some ground to make up before we get to where we want to be. How we get there is a matter for debate, but I am optimistic that perceptions have changed, and broadly speaking we all agree that we want to get there. And as we face this period of uncertainty, the need for more women in executive, board and leadership positions is so much more important and so deserving of acknowledgement and recognition in the way that the Natalie Miller Fellowship does that I just have to say congratulations again.

Many of us have started our careers without a real sense of the opportunities and challenges that will be presented to us, and I certainly sit in that category. When I started work, advocating for increased local content quotas from the commercial free to air broadcasters on behalf of the production industry, I never thought that twelve years on I’d be standing here, saying what we sorely need across the screen community is strong, coordinated, positive leadership on the investment and consumption of the same content from Asia. Because as Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard once said: "Whatever else this century brings, it will bring Asia's return to global leadership, Asia's rise. This is not only unstoppable, it is gathering pace."

With the support of the Fellowship, I have been invited to participate in the 2019 Asialink Business Leaders program, Australia’s preeminent Asia leadership program, to build the skills, knowledge and networks for effective engagement with Asia, to enhance my ability to lead cross-cultural teams and play a key role in our industry’s presence in the region.

So the lesson in all of this is, we all need to be ready to step up when the opportunity presents itself, and also be willing to help other women reach their full potential, because together we can open the door even wider for a larger group of women to come in beside us, and take their rightful place in leadership positions across our entire community. So again thank you for the acknowledgment and support. And, whilst this acknowledgment only singles out some of us, I hope it makes it feel possible for everyone that the future is going to be better, that there will be more places for women, and that the Australian screen industry of the future will be a much more equal, diverse and dynamic place then perhaps that of the past.