Documentary explores how harmful conspiracy theories can take hold of us

There was a time when Aftermath co-director Jared Nicholson was in a dark place, getting most of his "news" from far-right podcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

"You're in this echo chamber," he says. "It formed my entire world view."

It's how he first encountered video footage of the late Wendy Scurr. She was a first responder during the Port Arthur massacre on April 28, 1996, which remains the worst mass shooting in modern Australian history, claiming 35 lives.

Scurr worked at the historic site's information centre. A former St John's ambulance officer, she trained many of the staff in first aid. They fought to save as many people as possible. "She was a hero," Nicholson says.

Taking a dark turn

The event left a long shadow for survivors and those who aided them. As the news cycle moved on, Scurr felt abandoned. Suffering from PTSD and unable to work, she campaigned for proper mental health care for her and her fellow first responders.

Tragically, Scurr fell down a rabbit hole, following wildly untrue conspiracy theories that sprung up in the wake of Port Arthur. It was while in a similarly dark online space that Nicholson encountered Scurr.

"Every time there was a mass-shooting event, people would share this video of Wendy," he says.

While Scurr was offline, Nicholson managed to track her down.

Increasingly troubling beliefs

Premiering at the Adelaide Film Festival, the often-confronting Aftermath explores how a stoic, sensible woman like Scurr could find herself believing in such astonishing untruths.

It's equally the story of how Nicholson withdrew from the abyss that threatened to swallow him too.

Nicholson's parents split when he was three. His father was an evangelical zealot who talked in tongues, filling his young son's head with the terrifying promise of the rapture alongside conspiracy theories about Y2K and 9/11.

"I've got a son who's five years old," Nicholson says. "Had I said the same stuff to him, I could see how messed up he would be."

In documenting Scurr's story, Nicholson became increasingly troubled by her unfounded beliefs, pulling him deeper into a paranoid quagmire.

And then Scurr fell ill. "I just had this belief that Wendy f***ing survived everything, she's going to survive whatever's next," he says. "Then you get the call saying that she's passed."

Telling tricky stories

Mourning Scurr and feeling increasingly lost, Nicholson turned inwards, examining his own fraught childhood and experiencing mental health issues.

He reached out to seasoned documentarian Ben Lawrence (Ithaka, The People vs Robodebt) for help in shaping Aftermath. 

"Ben was that person to try to help me make sense of what the hell this thing could be."

Lawrence was cautious, at first. "When Jared first approached me, the story kind of scared me," he says. "I certainly went in thinking this was going to be a really difficult story to tell."

But difficult does not equal unworthy. "It's critical that we, as filmmakers, tell stories that frighten us," Lawrence says.

His grappling with the Robodebt scandal was one such challenge. While that was a very different scenario from that shown in Aftermath, some of the harm caused has parallels, particularly around what some people feeling the lack of sufficient support.

"When something like this happens, you need society to be able to rush in and take care of the most vulnerable," Lawrence says.

When that doesn't happen, otherwise sensible people can find themselves warped by disturbing conspiracy theories that can bend them out of shape.

"It consumed Wendy," Lawrence says. "And then Jared tells me about his childhood, so you have these two characters in freefall."

Difficult conversations

Providing no easy answers, Aftermath acknowledges that the trying times we live in are seeing more and more people turn to conspiracies.

Nicholson insists it's vital we talk about this disenfranchisement, and what happens when people get lost in that dark space.

Nicholson's glad the Adelaide Film Festival was willing to get into the weeds with him. "They're risk-takers that back bold stories," he says. "For me, it's about telling the story from the inside, with understanding and empathy."

Lawrence agrees, suggesting we need to be better at having difficult conversations, especially around the most confronting issues.

"Talk to someone that has a different belief than you," he says. "Try to understand them. That's what Jared's done in this film, is he really tried to understand Wendy, to humanise her and his own journey.

"At the end of the day, that's what we're encouraging people to do. That's the only way we're going to navigate our way out of all of this."

Aftermath screens at the Adelaide Film Festival