Biography :

Wayne Coles-Janess is an Internationally Award winning Producer, Writer and Director of Documentaries and Drama programs.

His documentary, Bougainville - "Our Island, Our Fight" has won numerous awards including: Best Documentary, Best Video production and Audience Awards. It has screened at over 35 international film festivals, from Zanzibar through to New York .

Wayne has worked as Producer - Director for some of the highest rating programs on Australian television. ABC’s Flagship program - Foreign Correspondent, SBS’s 13 part series - front up, and The Movie Show . Internationally, he has supplied programming for the BBC, Channel 4, CBC, NHK and the American Broadcasting Corporation.

His drama, "On the Border of Hopetown" received an AFI ( Australian Film Institute) Nomination. It screened at over 30 International Film Festivals including the Golden Gate Awards at San Francisco International Film Festival. Coles-Janess holds three Post Graduate Awards in Media Studies (Hons), Visual and Performing Arts (Hons) and Education. He is a graduate from the Film School at the Queensland College of Art. He has been a guest speaker at International Film Festivals in Turkey, USA, Brazil, Australia, Canada and Taiwan .

Filmography:

Bougainville - “Our Island, Our Fight”
This is the only documentary of the longest war in the South Pacific. A war which killed 20000 people this decade just two hours from Australia. It’s an exceptional story of an indigenous people successfully taking up arms against the ecological devastation of their lands by a multinational mining company and the governments that stood to profit from it.
Cut off from all humanitarian aid and invisible to international media, this multi-award winning documentary smuggles us onto the island of this besieged people, as they fight for independence.

Big Cities of Dreams
The first episode is set in Harlem and the subways of New York City taking us into the world of pan handlers and crack addicts. It is a cry for social justice in the US, as the disadvantaged battle against racism and oppression. The gritty street based series takes into the under bellies of New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Moscow.

Lawyers Guns and Money
Boardrooms, Courtrooms and Jungles? Mining giant Rio Tinto is being sued for war crimes against humanity in America Courtrooms. This action is being mounted by the US lawyer who took on the tobacco industry and won the largest settlement in history - $10 Billion US - as portrayed in the film ‘The Insider’. Bougainville. A once pristine island lying off the tropical north of Australia. It has seen the devastation of the Rio Tinto supported War and the death of 20 000 people as a result of the fight to keep the island from the mining company’s grasp. The Second film in a Multi-Award winning trilogy on the Bougainville Island Conflict.

Life at the end of the Rainbow
In a hot region of scrub and farmland is Rainbow. A small farming community of five hundred, existing on the edge of the Australian desert. It is best known for its dust storms and beautiful sunsets. Interspersed with home movies from the 1940s, ‘Life at the end of the Rainbow’ gives a pictorial insight into what life is and once was like for the people there .

On the Border of Hopetown
An International Aw a rd Winning, AFI nominated program . It follows the lives of travelers passing through a service station.

ABC Foreign Correspondent
Production of Lead and World in Focus segments. Armed with a camera and a solar cell, Ipso-facto Productions got the stories that couldn't or wouldn't be told. Licensed by international broadcasters such as BBC World in the UK, CBC News in Canada, CH4 in the UK, and EO in Holland.

front up
One of SBS's top rating programs. Ipso-facto Productions produced a revamped look and style, including commissioning new theme music and opening and closing credits. All areas of post production were handled delivering ready to broadcast 13 episodes of the most repeated series to date!