Virus Media is a young and innovative company specialising in strong stories from unusual places. The company is ground-breaking both in its product and also in the processes used to create that product. Virus Media also has a happy knack of procuring alternative sources of funding for its projects.

Set up in 1999, the company has been active in broadcast drama and documentary production along with radio documentary and multimedia projects. The directors Enda Murray and Monique Potts combine strong backgrounds in grassroots media production with innovative flair.

Virus Media's most successful project to date is Road , a broadcast drama devised and acted by young Aboriginal people in the Redfern area of Sydney. The 26 minute film was shot on 35mm with a budget of $270K raised from the AFC Indigenous Unit, SBSi, NSWFTO, Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and the Australia Council.

Road screened on SBS and won Audience Favourite, Best Director (Catriona McKenzie) and Best Cinematography (Alan Collins) at Flickerfest in 2001 and was given a theatrical release and distribution through the AFI. Road has featured in numerous international festivals including Rotterdam, Ethnofest Berlin, Indigenous Film Festival, Montreal and Dublin and was translated into French and presented to the French government as part of the Baudin Cultural Gift by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade .

Virus Media with the support of the Australia Council and the NSW Ministry for the Arts developed an innovative internet arts project Virtual Palestine . ( www.virtualpalestine.org) . This project was developed with young Arabic people in Western Sydney and provides a virtual space for the Palestinian community worldwide to communicate and share artwork on the web.

Virus Media has produced several radio documentaries for the ABC Radio National Radio Eye slot on fringe communities in Australian society. These include Dereb, portrait of an Ethiopian musician, Wired Palestine and Earthdream.

Previous to coming to Australia in 1996, Enda Murray produced broadcast documentary with his then company Firbolg Films for Central Television in the UK and RTE in Ireland. He was also active in the media activism initiative Undercurrents, an alternative news service which won several international media awards.

Enda Murray is an award winning filmmaker with 20 years experience in program making having worked in Ireland, England, Europe, USA and Australia. Educated at Trinity College Dublin and St. Martin's School of Art in London, he has written, produced and directed several drama and documentary programs which examine the relationship between communities and popular culture. These include Sound System about Jamaican sound systems in Birmingham for Central TV in 1994 , Gaelic Girls about Irish women emigrants playing Irish rules football in Sydney in 1997 and Reel Irish about three generations of Irish dancers in Britain in 1998. With his own production company, Virus Media, he co-produced Road , an award-winning drama made collaboratively with young Aboriginal people in Sydney ( Road was presented to the French government by the Australian Federal government as part of the Baudin cultural bequest in 2002). He also produced an on-line youth arts portal for young Palestinians and has written and produced three radio documentaries for ABC Radio Eye - Earthdreamers , about a travelling techno music circus, Wired Palestine about the use of the internet in the Middle East Conflict and Dereb – a profile of an Ethiopian musician living in Sydney.

Previous to coming to Australia in 1996, Enda Murray produced broadcast documentary for Central Television in the UK and RTE in Ireland. He was active in the activist video magazine Undercurrents, an alternative news service which won several international media awards and also produced and directed numerous social justice campaign films.

Enda Murray is a pioneer of live vjaying and has performed at clubs and raves both legal and dodgy from Wolverhampton to Woolloomooloo including the Hacienda in Manchester, Heaven and Megadog in London and the Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts.

Enda Murray's latest productions are a short feature film called Jammin' in the Middle E and a documentary called Bankstown Habib which both feature the Arabic community in Western Sydney. These projects are supported by the Australian Film Commission, New South Wales Film and Television Office, Australia Council for the Arts and NSW Ministry for the Arts and are due to screen on SBS television.

Monique Potts has worked in online development for 10 years with a background in youth work and creative media production. She gained a BA in Communications from the University of Technology in Sydney and from1999 to 2002 she worked for the Open Training Education Network (OTEN) co-ordinating production of online learning and multimedia products. She is now the Community Development Producer at ABC New Media where she co-ordinates the development of interactive and community development features for ABC Online and digital media services. Monique recently completed an MA in New Media with University of NSW.