The Koalas Filmmaker Georgia Wallace-Crabbe on the Fight to Save an Australian Icon

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The Koalas is a documentary that follows in the footsteps of the McIntyre’s Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story and Jane Hammonds’s Black Cockatoo Crisis, in that it essays the plight of an Australian icon – the koala – alongside the stories of the activists, ecologists, politicians, and wildlife carers who are putting themselves on the line to save the iconic creature.

Directed and produced by Gregory Miller and Georgia Wallace-Crabbe, The Koalas is a powerful, if at times devastating, documentary that speaks to a crisis occurring right in front of us. Whether it’s bushfires or landscape clearing or road strikes, the life of the koala is always in danger.

Georgia speaks to me ahead of The Koalas screenings at the Berlin Down Under Film Festival on 29 September, Adelaide on 29 September, the Darwin Deckchair Cinema on the 30th of September, and in Copenhagen on October 3rd and 6th. In the following extensive conversation, Georgia talks about her journey into filmmaking, her path from winning awards the Melbourne Film Festival to making films that told global stories, to the importance of creating a film about the koala.

This is a generous discussion with Georgia, and one I’m grateful to have had. If you are interested in the work that is occurring across the nation to support koalas, please seek out this film. For additional information and future film screenings, visit thekoalasfilm.com. To find out more about Georgia’s career, visit InnerSense here.

The Koalas is supported by Dov Kornits and Screen Inc. To find out more about Screen Inc, visit https://screeninc.com.au/

Andrew F Peirce

Andrew is passionate about Australian film and culture. He is the co-chair of the Australian Film Critics Association, a Golden Globes voter, and the author of two books on Australian film, The Australian Film Yearbook - 2021 Edition, and Lonely Spirits and the King. You can find him online trying to enlist people into the cult of Mac and Me.

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