AU
A portrait of an albino Aboriginal teenager, her feelings of alienation while at a convent boarding school, and her dreams of escape.
Jan 1998
Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.
Jan 2006
Bluey, an angry young woman trapped in a life of violence, meets a mystery mentor who could change everything. Bluey is a story of courage, heart and the fight for survival.
Jun 2015
Loosely based on the filmmaker's personal experience, "Terra Nullius" is an impressionistic account of an eight year old Koori girl, Alice, growing up in a white adoptive family which denies her Aboriginality. The film examines how unacknowledged shame and fear passes from one generation to the next, from one culture to another. The last scene depicts a silent meeting between the young Alice and the adult Alice. In order to reclaim her life, Alice decides she must confront the pain and confusion of her childhood.
Jan 1992
BREATHING UNDER WATER is the story of a woman's journey into an imaginary underworld city. The birth of her daughter into an increasingly perilous world has unsettled everything in Beatrice's (Anne Louise Lambert) life. Her growing unease prompts Beatrice to undertake a journey - an investigation into human nature, a confrontation with the fears of our time, and a search for clues that will ultimately give her an answer to the central riddle of the film: why has humankind set the stage for its own extinction? The director’s preoccupation with humankind’s tendency to self-destruct was one factor that lead to the creation of this complex film.
May 1993
Documentary using archival footage, newsreels and contemporary interviews with women of the WW2 Australian Women's Land Army.
Sep 1988
Argentina, 2001. The country is in the middle of a state of siege. Bruno leads a rural military patrol of five soldiers into the countryside. They come upon an old farmhouse and inside they find several corpses and two survivors. Unwittingly, they awaken a diabolical entity living in the forest that revives the dead in the house and will torment them all night long. They will have to resist until dawn, or become part of a bloody sacrifice made centuries ago.
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In a future devastated by economic crisis, corruption, social inequality, and diseases, Tisha, an organ trafficker and hitwoman, will have to face her own demons.
Nov 2019
The story of 95-year-old Aboriginal elder Laurie Baymarrwangga and her work to maintain the language and cultural traditions of the Yan-nhangu people of Murrungga.
Feb 2012
With young women 18-24 being most at risk of abuse, Australian comedian Becky Lucas sets out to understand what an abusive relationship looks like, how it begins and why it's so hard to intervene.
Follow Arnav, a six year old Southern Indian boy, as he explores his environment.
Dec 2014
Waste Not is a film about where your garbage goes, who sorts it for you, and what it is worth if it isn't just tossed into landfill. It's easier and cheaper to retrieve gold from old computers for instance, than to dig it up. Organics can be used to create fertiliser and green electricity and yet each Australian sends half a tonne of food waste to landfill each year where it is contaminated with chemicals and e-waste. We recycle only 50% of all our waste. There is an alternative to environmental apocalypse and we don't have to wait for the politicians to make it happen. All we really need to do is be creative and use our imaginations to turn this waste into wealth again. Waste Not talks to scientists, workers at waste depots, environment campaigners, gardeners and even a famous chef about how easy it is to save the planet by simply recycling properly.
Jan 2011
Four women bowlers on their way home to Pyramid Hill (population 550) from a tournament roll their car on a deserted road in rural Victoria. They are coping fairly well until the local men and emergency services start trying to help.
Nov 1997
In these fast and modern times, the Numurindi people are still guided by the seasons and stories of the Dreamtime. This observational documentary focuses on Moses Numamurdirdi and his family's fight to hold onto their culture and ways in an ever-changing world.
Jun 2005
This documentary records Hoaas' personal encounter with the closed society of North Korea. As with her earlier work, Hoaas approaches her film as a cumulation of fragments encompassing different perspectives that together offer a point of entry into a complex society. Her diary-style narration signals her limited personal perspective into this culture, especially given the brief filming period and her difficulty in breaking through the facade of the showcase version of Korea insisted upon by her official guides. Hoaas' restricted visual access, and her reluctance to present over-familiar images of the hardship and depravation informed her decision to use this narrative device to frame her film within the context of the famine crisis that began in 1997 following the failure of crops caused by two consecutive years of heavy flooding.
Feb 1998
An hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil.
Apr 2002
'I want to make a film about women' is a speculative documentary love letter to Russian constructivist women. The new Soviet Union of the 1920s championed equality for women and great innovation in the creative arts. Until it didn't. Looking back at that time, history remembers the men who were celebrated and then shut down. But women were there, too, and they were influential, powerful and brilliant. 'I want to make a film about women' gazes in to a creative communal kitchen and watches these women transform it into a workshop, then a stage set, then a film, all the while juggling noisy men and the wolves of history. It imagines what the revolutionary women artists of the 1920s said, what they did, and what they might have created had it not been for Stalin's suppression.
Oct 2019
This film documents a unique collaboration between Indigenous and white historians from Australia and North America. In September 2004, a diverse group travelled through the Top End of Australia meeting representatives of the traditional landowners, and engaging in a dialogue about Indigenous history. The themes that emerged raised more questions than answers - from cultural appropriation and copyright, to land rights, the role of language and art, and what history means to Indigenous communities in the current climate of cultural reclamation and survival.
Apr 2006
THREE BOYS DREAMING follows three Indigenous boys over four years as they chase the dream of becoming professional AFL footballers.
Jun 2010
Although about top Aboriginal sportsmen, BLACK MAGIC is more than a film about sport. It is an account of the creative use of sport made by the Noongar people of Western Australia's south-west to advance their people's standing. Denied access to other areas of social life like most Aboriginal communities at the time, the Noongars, from as early as 1920, channelled the natural talent of their young people into the arena of competitive sport, notably running, boxing and football. Competitive sport, as filmmaker Paul Roberts notes, is 'an open gate, a universal rite of passage, an opportunity to achieve recognition and acceptance.'
Jul 1988