The Badja Forest Road Bushfire, part of the devastating 2019-2020 Black Summer fire season, struck Yuin Country in southern NSW in January 2020. Through the creation of a documentary by a local filmmaker and through an oral history collaboration with the National Library of Australia , survivors have recorded their memories of an unforgettable disaster, and how they have rebuilt their lives, homes and community.
Join the Library for a screening of documentary The Day She Stole the Sun, followed by a panel discussion with Rhonda Ayliffe (Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre), James G Logue (Crewcible Studio), and Dr Mary Hutchison (oral historian). The event with be chaired by Dr Scott McKinnon (National Library of Australia).
Only the panel discussion portion of this event will be livestreamed.
Program
- 11am to 12:15pm – Welcome and film screening
- 12:15 to 1pm – Break for lunch
- 1pm to 2pm – Panel discussion (livestreamed)
Attend in person
Entry to this event is free but bookings are essential.
Watch online
If you cannot attend in-person, the panel discussion will be available online. Please make a booking and we will send you a direct link to the livestream event via email. Or you can join through the Library’s YouTube channel .
The Day She Stole the Sun documentary will be screening at the Cobargo Resilience Centre from early 2026 – please visit Cobargo Resilience Centre for more information.
About the panellists
Rhonda Ayliffe
Rhonda Ayliffe is a creative practitioner and PhD candidate at the University of Canberra. Her PhD research project is a creative exploration of disaster recovery work she has been involved with in her fire-impacted hometown, Cobargo, Yuin Country, Far South Coast, NSW.
Rhonda is the vice-chairperson and project lead for the Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre; the primary infrastructure recovery project on the Cobargo village main street.
Rhonda was the project manager of the Badja Forest Road Fire Oral History Project and the executive producer for The Day She Stole the Sun.
James G Logue
The creative force behind Crewcible Studio, James Logue brings more than a decade of independent media production experience to the table. As the Lead Director and Producer at Crewcible, he has built an exciting Australian video production studio and inspires a dedicated team of specialists.
James’ broad technical expertise and experience as director, cinematographer, in sound and editing, together with his personal warmth, capacity for deep listening and for crafting compelling narratives, underpins a growing portfolio of work on all platforms.
A massive film buff himself, James’ experience with cross-cultural projects, his intuition and skill for building connected, collaborative teams, his creative vision, adaptability and innovation, mark him as a dynamic and exciting talent in feature-length documentary filmmaking.
Scott McKinnon
Dr Scott McKinnon is Senior Adviser, Curatorial & Collection Research at the National Library of Australia, where he currently leads the Library’s Australian Response to COVID-19 oral history project. A historian, librarian and curator, Scott has worked on a range of research projects examining community recovery from disaster. He is the co-editor of Disasters in Australia and New Zealand: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe (Palgrave MacMillan. 2021).
Mary Hutchinson
Mary Hutchison is an oral historian and Honorary Associate Professor at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at ANU. Prior to her work on the National Library’s Badja Forest Road Fire project , she was the interviewer for the Library’s oral history of the 2003 Canberra fires,
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