A trip to Cairns Crocodiles, presented by Pinterest, had Shy Ganglani ready to roll her eyes at the usual trite content. But that’s not what happened for the Assisterhood mentor. Here, Ganglani unpacks her time in FNQ and the sessions that stood out.
I flew into Cairns Crocodiles 2025 ready to rock the blazer-over-bathers look, deal with mad hair frizz, and to be honest, eye-roll a little. Ready to mentally go on my “yeah, cool, but where are the women of colour” rant. Ready to sit through a smorgasbord of brand-safe panels vaguely themed around “diversity”, “storytelling” and “making a difference”, curated by the same kind of execs who’d still find a way to mess up my three-letter name.
If I’m being brutally honest, I was ready to collect content for the group chat. Definitely not my soul.
And instead, I walked out annoyed. Because I felt hopeful. The infuriatingly deep-in-your-chest kind of hopeful. Against all odds.
It wasn’t the system that did that. It was the people the system keeps pushing to the side. The ones who keep showing up. Sharing generously. Building better. Still managing to live, love and crack the audience up while cracking us open. All while holding centuries of shit on their shoulders.
Like Mundanara Bayles, who stood up and said:
“I’m not a charity. I don’t want you to donate to me. I want to make money, and I don’t want to be told how to spend it”
Then there was this moment, one of many, when the moderator asked whether their work was “too self-referential” for focusing on queer Polynesian stories. Tessa Mansfield-Hung didn’t flinch.
She calmly pointed out:
“Well, no one ever says Scorsese only makes Italian gangster films”
It was completely on the money, and this group of fierce and talented artists made it clear they refused to be boxed in. They won’t apologise for telling stories that not only centre the people who’ve been missing from screens for too long, but are also fun as hell to make.
Then there was the President of Palau, Surangel S Whipps Jr, who felt less like a political leader and more like the wise uncle you trust with your whole soul. He said things like: “If you don’t love yourself, how can you love the planet?” and “It’s about turning the bad into something good”.
Sir. Please. We’re fragile. And your generosity is leaving us weeping with hope.
Across panels on creativity, climate, culture and care, there was just this realness that I didn’t see coming. Not corporate. Not polished. Just people speaking honestly about grief, legacy, family, survival and the fact that being a creative from a marginalised background means carrying all of that and still being asked to pitch three concepts by COB.
Michael Ray tore into the “dumb dad” stereotype with the vulnerability, grace and clarity of a true male ally:
“It’s not just bias. It’s sabotage!”
Like yes! Say it louder. For the scripts in the room that still paint dads out to be barely functioning babysitters in their own homes.
And the women. The many fierce, flawed, brilliant women. Speaking with a softness and still shaking the room. Like Chiquita from Coco Gun, talking about DV survivors applying for scholarships. Like Laura from Run Aotearoa, saying there comes a moment in your career where you just have to back yourself. And if you fall, at least you fall as you.
And yes, there was plenty of talk about community. But not in a kumbaya, let’s hold hands and launch a campaign kinda way. In a real, gritty, who are you accountable to when no one’s watching kind of way.
And then Antoinette Lattouf took the mic. Praised for her journalism one day, dragged through legal hell the next, she stood firm. Graceful. Witty. Vulnerable, without ever losing power.
She asked what it means to lead with principle when the institutions built on truth no longer tell it. She spoke of the cost. The court cases. The threats. The burnout. And the moment she chose to just exist: “Be who I am without having to advocate for my existence or safety”.
It hit. And it stayed. Her message was clear.
“You are your own pocket of trust, so don’t abandon it…Don’t compromise your ethics just to stay afloat on a sinking ship…so build something of your own you can stand on…”
I came in hungover on capitalism and halfway through a burnout spiral from the adland hopping most freelancers can relate to. And I left holding stories I didn’t expect. I left with a softness creeping back into my chest. I left thinking maybe, just maybe, we’re not completely cooked.
Do I still think the system is broken? Yes. Do I still think most media “diversity” efforts are like putting lip balm on a leaking pipe? Also, yes.
But I also think that if the most marginalised among us are still showing up with heart and craft and fire, then maybe hope isn’t naïve. Maybe it’s strategy.
So no, I didn’t find ‘#inspired’ in the branded tote bag sense. I found it in an… almost inconvenient way. I found it in the cracks and the confessions. In the knowing glances between women, opeople of colour, and queer folks in the back row. And even when we stopped to semi-antagonise a group of white men about the male gaze and gender pay gaps at parties, we were met with curiosity and actual solutions.
I tried to stay jaded, but they got me.
And as I answered over the sound of clinking glasses when asked for the hundredth time, “how’s your conference going?”… I’m resentfully optimistic.
