This is Dr Grant Leigh Saunders
Saunders is a proud Biripi man from the mid-north coast of NSW and an award winning Australian Indigenous filmmaker. Saunders graduated from the Australian Film TV and Radio School with an MA(Honours) in Film and TV Documentary in 2006 and from 2007-2011 he produced over 20 TV half hour documentaries, as well as music videos and mini doco interstitials for the Indigenous Programs Unit, ABC TV.
After leaving the ABC, in 2011 Saunders won the Out There and Deadly emerging Indigenous filmmakers fund provided by Metro Screen and was able to produce an online sketch comedy mini-series called Whiteblackatcha. This series gained the attention of the ABC and Saunders was commissioned to produce a short comedy sketch called ‘Black Santa’ for a Christmas special in 2013.
In 2015, Saunders was commissioned to produce a two-part doco series for NITV, called ‘A Flash Black? The Michael McLeod story’. In 2016, Saunders co-produced his first independent feature length documentary, ‘Teach a Man to Fish’, which came second place in the audience choice award and 5th place for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award at Sydney International Film Festival (2018), officially selected for Byron Bay International Film Festival, screening also on NITV and SBS on Demand and numerous education and community screenings.
Saunders was recently conferred to the Doctor of Creative Arts degree with the University of Technology, Sydney and was recipient of the UTS Excellence in Research and the Jumbunna Indigenous post-graduate scholarships. His research and creative production focused on Australian Indigenous Hip-Hop and the social justice issues it speaks back to, titled ‘JustUS: What Hip-hop wants you to know’.
He is currently co-editing the first ever edited volume on Australian Hip-Hop cultures for Routledge Press and vying for funding to produce another Hip-Hop documentary based on his doctoral research, "JustUS: Hip-Hop and The Block".
About Sonic Nomad
Saunders created his sole Trading business Sonic Nomad in 2004 while studying at film school. He came up with the name because at the time he was a sound designer and music producer and when he transitioned into film-making the name stuck.
Sonic Nomad has since written, directed and produced independent award winning documentaries, educational videos, TV commercials, music and music videos. Sonic Nomad sources world-class industry professionals, using the latest video production and post-production equipment and facilities to produce high broadcast quality video content. Sonic Nomad specialises in Indigenous story-telling, hiring Indigenous professionals, casting Indigenous talent and producing Indigenous cultural, historical and socio-political content.
Saunders created this company to respond to the lack of Indigenous representation in Australian media and has made a significant contribution to this space in order to achieve the Indigenous collective goal of Indigenous self-determination, equality and social justice.