Sharing veterans’ untold stories

With a passion for sharing the untold war stories of Australian veterans, award-winning documentary filmmaker Jeff Hughes is hoping to preserve more experiences of local heroes after moving his charity to the Redcliffe Peninsula.

As the CEO of the not-for-profit organisation This Story Australia, which he co-founded with Rachel Dutton, Jeff made the decision to move their office from North Lakes to a much larger space in Sutton St.

Since establishing This Story Australia in January 2020, the pair has captured the stories of nearly 90 war veterans who served in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions including WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Timor, and Afghanistan.

“We have travelled all over Australia to interview veterans and make documentaries to ensure their heroic actions live on forever and can be remembered for generations to come,” Jeff says.

“But as a charity founded in Moreton Bay, we are eager to reach out and preserve more stories from our local veterans.

“Moreton Bay resident veterans make up only 10 percent of the veterans we have interviewed across Australia, and we want to change that.

“By moving the charity’s office to Redcliffe, we hope to have more of a presence in the community and partner with local organisations to share local stories.”

Jeff and Rachel have already started getting to know the local community after hosting a successful golf fundraiser, with 16 teams taking part in the ambrose-style event at Redcliffe Golf Club on August 2.

“That was our fourth annual golf day, and was by far the best one yet,” Jeff says.

“We had around 10 teams who have played and supported the day before, as well as some new teams and new sponsors.

“We have held the golf day at different courses in the past, but now we feel the time is right to stick to the Redcliffe Golf Course and build more community support and local connections here.”

How you can help 

This Story Australia relies heavily on grants, donations and corporate sponsorship, which pays for the film crews and editing on each film.

“Redcliffe is a great tight-knit community where everybody comes together to support one another, and it is our hope that we can meet lots of people who will support us with the important work we do,” Jeff says.

“We are always applying for grants, but what we need to develop is core support from businesses who want to come on this journey with us, so whenever an opportunity comes up to interview a veteran, we can do that straight away.

“In the past four years, there are multiple examples when we have been asked by a family to interview their loved one, and by the time we have secured funding, we have been too late. This is heartbreaking, but sadly it is too common an occurrence.”

Accomplishments for the charity include three International Film Festival Awards in the past 18 months, with Jeff and Rachel saying “preserving history and making a difference in the lives of veterans and their families is the best reward”.

This Story Australia also created a documentary in 2023 featuring First Nations veterans after receiving a NAIDOC Week grant from the National Indigenous Australians Agency, and produced a documentary commemorating the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the AHS Centaur east off Moreton Island in 1943.

For more information and to see Jeff's documentaries, visit the website.