A snippet of Jelena’s interview was played on Grandstand on ABC Local Radio this afternoon.
UPDATE 13/10: quotes from the interview
Ride of Her Life: Saya Sakakibara
Monday 20 October, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
BMX rider Saya Sakakibara is at the top of her game. She’s won three successive World Cup series and last year took home Olympic gold.
But despite her huge success, Saya lives with constant fear.
“I’ve never been a fearless girl. I’ve always taken calculated risks,” she tells Australian Story.
“I really had to work through every race weekend, have a mental breakdown, pick myself back up again and race the next day.”
As a child, Saya followed her older brother Kai into BMX racing. As young adults, the talented duo began to excel on the world stage.
“We had these two amazing siblings which sounds like something out of a Disney movie…kicking ass around the world, doing amazing things together”, says talent manager, Ryan Chipperfield.
When it was announced that the 2020 Olympics would be held in Tokyo, where they lived as young children, Saya and Kai dreamed big.
Then tragedy struck. In a qualifying round for the Games, Kai crashed badly and was left with permanent injuries.
“She’s gone through her whole life just following his footsteps,” says coach, Luke Madill. “Now she had to train on her own, go to events on her own.”
Saya hoped to bring home gold from Tokyo, but things didn’t go to plan.
Then, after multiple crashes and concussions, Saya developed a fear of racing so crippling she almost walked away from the sport that had defined her. But in the end, she couldn’t quit.
“You’re not supposed to just throw in the towel,” Saya says. “It’s supposed to be hard and it’s supposed to push you.”
In a gripping, adrenaline-fuelled episode, Saya reveals the highs and lows on the road to the Paris Olympics and the inspiration that helped her achieve her dream.
“I don’t think she’s ever going to overcome the fear side of things, and I don’t think anyone in our sport ever will,” says Luke. “I think she’s just going to get more comfortable understand it.”
Producers: Winsome Denyer and Rebecca Armstrong.
1 Like
Against The Odds – Lauren Huxley
Monday 27 October, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
“It’s been 20 years but you don’t really ever forget. You never get over it.” - Christine Huxley, Lauren’s mother.
Lauren Huxley was an 18-year-old TAFE student when she was savagely beaten by a stranger and left to die in her suburban home.
Doctors put her in an induced coma and expected her to die.
But miraculously, the teenager pulled through and managed to learn to walk, talk and eat again.
That incident 20 years ago, the manhunt that followed and her incredible recovery, kept Lauren’s face in the newspapers and on our TV screens for years.
“She survived with her own courage and her own determination but a family the likes of which I’ve never come across,” says journalist Ray Martin, who reported on the story at the time.
Now Lauren and her family are confronting a new fear.
Her convicted assailant, Robert Black Farmer, who never pleaded guilty, will be eligible for parole next year.
“That is always very confronting for victims and their families, particularly in situations where there’s been no remorse, there’s been no contrition,” says the detective who investigated the case, Det Supt Jason Dickinson.
“It is a little bit of a concern and worry,” says Lauren, “because he nearly took my life; he nearly killed me.”
As Farmer nears the end of his sentence, Lauren, her family and the police who investigated the case look back on a crime that changed them forever.
This is a powerful story about the lingering effects of trauma, the power of love and family and surviving against the odds.
Producers: Tracey Kirkland and Olivia Rousset .
2025 Final: Monday 3 November
It’s My Party - Kirsha Kaechele
Monday 3 November, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview - 2025 FINAL
Raised on the remote Pacific Island of Guam, Kirsha Kaechele has always felt like an outsider. It’s one reason the US-born artist behind the controversial Ladies Lounge embraces a challenge.
“I want to ask the difficult questions, but I want to ask them playfully and lovingly”, she tells Australian Story. “That makes it easier to investigate things and go into uncomfortable spaces.”
Since meeting David Walsh, the founder of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, and moving to Tasmania, Kirsha has revelled in those uncomfortable spaces.
In her own unique way, she’s taken on one of the island’s most intractable issues – the battle between the forest industry and conservationists – by inviting all sides to a three-day Forest Economic Congress in 2023.
“We need to actually just invite our opponents literally to our parties. We shouldn’t just be in echo chambers. We should drink with them,” Kirsha says.
“It was like an emotional rollercoaster for three days,” says Dwayne Kerrison, a forestry contractor who attended the event. “Big feelings and then some weird art.”
More recently, she attracted international attention when she turned a court challenge to her women-only Ladies Lounge installation into performance art, simultaneously mocking the process and making serious points about misogyny and privilege.
“She dares to be feminine and sexual and to talk about sexuality and those power dynamics,” says artist and curator Michael Zavros. “It’s confronting to men; it’s confronting to the art world.”
She’s the first to admit she hasn’t always received the warmest welcome from the traditional art world.
“I have had to deal with these kind of serious art world critics who just tell me that I’m not an artist,” she laments. “But it gave me something to fight against.”
In an exclusive for Australian Story, the performance artist and provocateur creates some unusual characters to help tell her story - former teacher Sister Mary Catherine, hippy guru Sunfeather and German artist & critic Hans Richter.
“She’ll find some interesting ways to tell her story that may not involve her normal clothes,” says actor and friend Rhys Muldoon. “Her life is her art so be prepared for some surprises.”
The final episode for 2025, It’s My Party is a fascinating portrait of a woman who defies definition.
Australian Story will be back on air in 2026 with more extraordinary stories.
Producer: Robyn Powell.
2026 marks 30 years since the show begun and hopefully the show is rejuvenated somewhat.
I have found the last few seasons to have lost what made the show great.
A shown where the narrative is driven by the talent the story is about and supported by their friends, family, and detractors.
This year we have seen episodes where the topic of the story didn’t want to be involved, or episodes that are just sit down interviews with Leigh Sales. That isn’t even to mention some of the stories are just scraping the bottom of the barrel.
ABC Showcase 2026:
Australian Story is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special audience event and some of the much-loved program’s most popular objects.
The Bon Scott episode is being repeated tonight, coinciding with AC/DC’s current Australian tour.
Monday 2 February 8:00pm
The Logie-award-winning documentary program Australian Story returns for its 30th year. Join us as Leigh Sales presents extraordinary stories about real people that illuminate, entertain and inspire.
This season, in addition to our usual mix of compelling human interest and true crime stories, we delve into the lives of swimmer Michael Klim, Indigenous leader and rock star Witiyana Marika, film director Sophie Hyde and ‘80s adventurer Alby Mangels. We will also mark our 30th anniversary with a special episode.
An ABC News production. Executive Producer, Greg Hassall. Series Producer, Lisa McGregor.
Sink or Swim - Michael Klim
Monday 2 February 8:00pm
Six years ago, Olympic champion Michael Klim almost lost the ability to walk. Then he received a devastating diagnosis. In this moving episode, Klim reveals how he hit rock bottom but ultimately emerged stronger.
Update:
Sink or Swim – Michael Klim
Monday 2 February, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
In the first episode of our 30th season, Australian Story features Olympic swimming great Michael Klim, who reveals how he came to terms with a devastating medical diagnosis.
“Six years ago, my identity was taken away and I couldn’t see a future,” he tells Australian Story from his home in Bali.
Michael was diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, a progressive autoimmune disease that causes muscle wastage and sensory loss. For someone who was once at the top of his sport, smashing world records and winning medals at three Olympic games, it was bitter blow.
“The physical degradation is one thing, but the mental issue was probably the biggest hurdle to overcome,” he says.
With him through his darkest hours was his fiancée Michelle Owen, who he had met just before his diagnosis.
“I said to her that you’ve got the dud version of Michael Klim. I don’t want you to have to live with this burden.”
In a moving episode, Michael reveals how he’s emerged from the most difficult period of his life and his hopes for the future.
“I feel like now I’m no less of a person or even, to be honest, probably a fuller person because of what I’ve been through,” says Michael. “I never thought I’d say that.”
Also appearing in the episode are his partner Michelle, former Olympians Ian Thorpe and Daniel Kowalski, US Olympic champion Gary Hall Jr, and Klim’s parents, sister and children.
Australian Story was launched 30 years ago with a brief to tell the stories of prominent and everyday Australians. Over its three decades on air, the show has profiled more than a thousand people, won many awards and built a large and loyal audience. We’ll be celebrating this landmark anniversary with a live event later in the year.
‘Sink or Swim’ producer: Rebecca Armstrong.
Michael Kilm had a chat with Brett Sprigg on Grandstand this afternoon about his episodes.
Finding Alby Mangels
Monday, February 9, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
Whatever happened to adventurer Alby Mangels?
In the late ‘70s and ‘80s, the swashbuckling filmmaker was a household name. His World Safari feature documentaries broke box office records and he became a pop cultural icon with his rugged good looks and succession of female travel companions.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone. The third movie in the World Safari franchise failed, the media accused him of faking shots and not paying staff, and Alby Mangels disappeared.
“Got too big for my boots,” the reclusive 77-year-old tells Australian Story. “I went broke, I lost everything. Went away from everything, from everybody.”
For a long time Mangels shunned the media but he agreed to talk to Australian Story, looking back at his difficult childhood, his extraordinary journey from barely literate bricklayer to world famous documentary adventurer, his sudden fall from grace and his career revival in the US in the 1990s. He addresses accusations that he faked footage and explains why he turned his back on fame.
The episode also includes interviews with his sister Maria and nephew Rick Snel, cinematographer Geoffrey Hall, American TV executive Mark Finkelpearl and TV historian Andrew Mercado.
Out in the Open – Sophie Hyde
Monday 16 February, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
Director Sophie Hyde is releasing a new feature film this week, but not without some trepidation. For Jimpais deeply autobiographical, shining a light on long held family secrets.
“I can’t believe I showed all of this,” she tells Australian Story. “I can’t believe how vulnerable we’ve been. I can’t believe I let my family be in all of this”
Sophie Hyde is one of Australia’s most successful directors, working with some of the world’s best, including Emma Thompson in 2022’s Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. In Jimpa, acclaimed actress Olivia Coleman plays a version of Sophie and US actor John Lithgow plays her father Jim.
Jim came out to his wife as gay when Sophie was 13 months old and her sister was four.
Yet they stayed living as a family for the next seven years. How the family negotiated their unconventional lives would go on to influence Sophie when her own child Aud began to mature as non-binary.
“The gift I was given by my dad was to show you could live as your full true self in the world and not have to reject parts of your life,” Sophie says. “My dad has been that person and now my child is as well, and they show us a way to live and be that is very beautiful.”
Aud Mason-Hyde plays a younger version of themselves in the film and despite the awkwardness of having their mother direct them in a sex scene, the experience has only brought Aud and Sophie closer.
With Jimpa, a version of Sophie’s family history has been released into the world, freeing the family from the secrets of the past.
“It’s taken a long time for me to be completely open about my family,” Sophie says. “But the more that you make something a secret, the more shameful it is. The great thing I think about the choices that my family made was to not stay inside those secrets.”
Producer: Vanessa Gorman
Nabbed – Ian Williams
Monday, February 23, 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview
When Victorian pensioner Ian Williams lost $1338 in a banking scam, he expected a quick refund and apology. But his bank, a subsidiary of the National Australia Bank, blamed him for the transactions, despite Ian’s dogged detective work producing clear evidence to the contrary.
The bank’s attitude so incensed the self-confessed “stubborn bugger” that he sued for it for $379,005,000. Williams estimated he was scammed 5.5% of his annual income and that figure represents 5.5% of NAB’s annual earnings.
“It was a number that in my mind would get the bank’s attention,” Williams says.
Ian has a varied skill set. He’s been a bricklayer, a private investigator, a nurse, a horse breaker and a bouncer. But representing himself in the Supreme Court was a challenge.
“I’ve downloaded the actual laws and the codes of conduct”, he says. “And you think, ‘Christ, what are they trying to get at?’”
Along the way, Ian joined the Scam Victim Alliance, an organisation which provides support to people who’ve been scammed and lobbies for legislation to protect them.
“Ian’s case was very similar to some of the other payments cases that we’d been dealing with,” says co-founder Alex Brooks. "They dispute the transaction but somehow the banks are able to still say it’s all your fault. “
Australian Story followed Ian Williams through the ups and downs of his court case and its aftermath, as he sought to hold the bank publicly accountable and draw attention to the massive problem of online scamming.
While the court case didn’t go the way he hoped, he did achieve an unexpected victory.
“I completely understand why he decided to go down the path he decided to go down”, says Chris Sheehan, head of fraud at NAB. “We could have done things a lot better."
Producer: Amos Roberts