Contra Stories is a production company making work for screen + audio + experience sizes big and small. Based in Naarm/Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Contra was created by producer Danielle Redford, who works alongside a motley/marvellous crew of fellow producers, writers, directors and storytellers to build narrative and unscripted story experiences across various formats.

First commencing life as Loveology Films from 2016-2023, Danielle's work under this banner included Winding Road and Beyond Strange Lands for Audible, Liquid Moonlight (Flickerfest 2021) and And The Winner Is (Screen QLD Original, Screamfest 2018). Loveology Films also worked alongside Australian filmmakers to sell and distribute their feature films to global audiences.

As an independent producer, Danielle has produced across My Body Says (Mama Bear Productions, ABC Australia, 2020), Decommissioned (Perception Pictures, Epic Games and Screen Queensland, 2021), Wentworth: The Fall Girl (Fremantle Media and Audible, 2021) and The Orchard (Princess Pictures and Audible, 2021).

Her projects have received development investment from Stan, Screen Queensland, Sunshine Coast Council, Brisbane City Council and more. In 2020, Danielle was named a Screen Producers Australia Ones To Watch, where she was mentored by Aquarius Films.

Sam Shephard once said¹ that right at the centre of a contradiction is the place you want to be.

Bono said² he wanted to make music capable of carrying our own weight, even the weight of our own contradictions.

Ezra used³ the word contra to illustrate a conversation between two people who may be the opposite of each other, but who find that a choice between two things is no choice at all.

And Maggie? She said⁴ that any decent realtor, walking you through a real s***hole, chirps on about good bones: this place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

A Contra story is one tasked with finding form to accommodate mess⁵.

It acknowledges the chaos inherent.

And then it moulds, sculpts, wrestles, conjures, bleeds and invites, regardless - or perhaps, because of.

No matter the form our stories take, these contraries allow us to build a better welcome, capable of holding the weight of so many stories, so many truths, so many hopes, and so many wonders.

The heart of that chaos, and those contras? They're where we find the seeds of progression, and where we hear the whisper to 'listen better (and water glasses are always full)'⁶.

Kick your shoes off/roll up your sleeves/get comfortable - in the midst of these tensions is where we make work that invites us to turn up entirely as ourselves.

It's a luscious invitation.