University of Tasmania, Australia

This artsforum will examine the difficulties, limitations and restrictions journalists and documentary makers face in trying to tell the story of Australia's role in the war in Afghanistan. It will be be based on the experiences of John Martinkus who has visited Afghanistan six times since 2005 producing documentaries for SBS Dateline. His most recent visit was undertaken as The Official War Cinematographer commissioned by the Australian War Memorial. The first of three documentaries is now on display at the Australian War Memorial.

John Martinkus has covered conflicts since 1995 in East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan, Aceh, Sri Lanka and Burma for print and from 2004  to 2008 for SBS Dateline. He has published three non fiction accounts of the conflicts in East Timor, Aceh and Iraq. Since 2009 he has lectured in Journalism at UTAS in Hobart.          

^{image credit: Dr John Martinkus at the Afghanistan Pakistan border in 2005.}