In documentary, the personal is always political, but it also needs to be courageous, engrossing, challenging. Today, the ease and relative low cost of production with digital cameras and desktop editing has brought a flood of personal films - non-linear, sometimes an essay, sometimes a diary, sometimes a journey - but not all succeed. This new style has brought with it new challenges for both film-maker and audience. What are the strategies by which a personal film engages with the wider society and with its audience. These are the questions we're throwing at our panel of documentary-makers, including Tahir Cambis (director of 1997 doco, "Exile in Sarajevo") and Ross ("Sherman's March") McElwee. McElwee is a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University's Dept of Visual and Environmental Studies, where he teaches a course in film-making. "Bright Leaves", his subjective autobiographical meditation on the allure of cigarettes and their troubling legacy, is also about film-making - home movie, documentary and fiction film. http://www.ozdox.org