All short films
46 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year
Where many of Australia’s best-known directors first displayed their talent.
B
Babakiueria 1986
A mockumentary surveying the culture and customs of the white native people of the land of ‘Babakieuria’, from the perspective of the country’s black colonisers.
Black Talk 2002
Wayne Blair fits a lot into 12 minutes of drama, weaving Indigenous language through the dialogue and exploring spiritual aspects of Indigenous culture and community.
C
Confessions of a Headhunter 2000
Based on a short story by Archie Weller, this short drama speaks about the conflict between the Indigenous people of the Perth area and colonial culture.
D
Desert Tracks 1997
Desert Tracks – a business established without government funding – is a community’s attempt to sustain itself culturally and an important initiative for self-determination.
The Djarn Djarns 2005
The Djarn Djarns is a comedy-drama very much suited for young people. It is a dance film with a sports feel, so culture and sport are not in competition.
F
The Felt Hat 1951
Arguably the first real attempt at film drama made in South Australia, The Felt Hat draws on 1940s crime fiction and Hollywood film noir to good effect.
Flat 2002
A short drama about the day in a life of a young teenager. Marnie lives in a housing commission estate and captures Alice Springs through a video camera given to her by her mostly absent father.
From Sand to Celluloid – Black Man Down 1996
This short experimental drama offers a spiritual alternative to fighting the system. To overcome injustice, return to your spiritual roots for healing to take place.
From Sand to Celluloid – No Way to Forget 1996
Writer-director Richard J Frankland drew on his experience as a field officer for the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody to compose this story.
From Sand to Celluloid – Payback 1996
Payback, a black-and-white short about the Western and Indigenous legal systems, is one of Warwick Thornton’s earliest dramatic works.
From Sand to Celluloid – Round Up 1995
Round Up is a lighthearted short drama that deals with the cultural clash between a white stockman and an Indigenous stockman.
From Sand to Celluloid – Two Bob Mermaid 1996
In this visually stunning short film set in the 1950s, a fair-skinned Aboriginal girl gains access to the local swimming pool where Aboriginal people are legally denied access.
G
Grange 2005
Grange is an irreverent story of the extremes two young lawyers go to in order to get promoted in the corporate sector.
Green Bush 2005
Warwick Thornton began his film career as a cinematographer and moved into directing and writing. In Green Bush, his visual aesthetic complements his storytelling strengths.
H
Harry’s War 2000
Richard Frankland, writer and director of the short drama Harry’s War, is from the fourth generation of Indigenous men to have served in the Australian army.
Harvie Krumpet 2003
Adam Elliott combines darkness and humour, tragedy and triumph, Alzheimer’s and living life to the full, so that we may learn more about what it means to be human.
L
Letters From Poland 1978
While the plight of migrant women was a pillar issue for 1970s and 1980s Australian feminism, this film’s approach to the issue is very much focused on the individual.
M
Magical Powers 1936
The idea behind Magical Powers was to show the audience some of the illusions and simple tricks that can be created with a moving image camera.
Maidens 1978
Almost four years in the making, Maidens sparked impassioned debate and became compulsory viewing in women and film courses around the country.
Mimi 2002
Warwick Thornton’s satirical short film stars Sophie Lee and Aaron Pedersen and pokes fun at white art collectors who purchase Indigenous art purely for its investment value.
My Mother Told Me 2007
A fragmentary account of the horrors of war in Cambodia evolves into an exploration of its aftershocks in a family and the impact of cultural dislocation on identity.
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello 2005
The film evokes an aura of mystery from the outset and is a superb example of how animation at its best can create a magical imaginary, yet convincing, world.
N
The New Car 1953
An ambitious amateur production, most of which is set in the early 1900s, the film was shot on location at an historic homestead in Morphettville, South Australia.
Nice Coloured Girls 1987
The tongue-in-cheek title of Tracey Moffatt’s first film positions Aboriginal women as naïve and 'nice’ but these are merely roles played by the women.
Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy 1989
Tracey Moffatt continues to challenge the social construction of Aboriginality and how it is viewed nationally and internationally. Night Cries is a possible sequel to Jedda.
P
Peter Nicholson Animations – Fraser’s Leadership Challenge 1974
An animated political cartoon by Peter Nicholson featuring Billy Snedden and Malcolm Fraser.
Peter Nicholson Animations – Gough’s World Tour 1974
An animated political cartoon by Peter Nicholson featuring Gough Whitlam, Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Bob Hawke.
Plains Empty 2005
Plains Empty functions as a metaphor for the whole Australian landscape, where the living characters are beset by the spirits of the past, and at no time is the past truly absent.
R
Road 2000
A film that emphasises the strangeness of the city, where a black fella has a hard time getting a cab, and more often than not, anything can happen.
S
Sa Black Thing 2005
This romantic comedy explores the role that cultural values play in the romance between two Indigenous characters.
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning 1999
The film offers few answers or a resolution and presents a possibility of characters trapped in an experience from which all are seeking liberation.
Shadow Panic 1989
An experiment in structure, Shadow Panic reflects the influence at the time of French screen theorists on Australian feminist filmmaking.
Shifting Sands – Grace 1998
This short drama from Wesley Enoch depicts the emotional journey of an Indigenous woman back to Australia for the funeral of her sister.
Shifting Sands – My Bed Your Bed 1998
This short romantic drama from Erica Glynn uses the power of silence to communicate the tension between two characters who have been promised to each other.
Shifting Sands – My Colour, Your Kind 1998
When under threat of having their children stolen by authorities, Indigenous mothers resorted to darkening their fair-skinned children with mud and charcoal.
Shifting Sands – Passing Through 1998
A directorial debut from filmmaker and celebrity chef Mark Olive, Passing Through weaves myth and legend to tell an Indigenous-flavoured ghost story.
Shifting Sands – Promise 1997
This is essentially a love story told in the absence of the love interest – grandfather – that resonates as one of those moments that are a cherished memory.
Shifting Sands – Tears 1997
Tears introduces the two main characters from Ivan Sen’s feature film Beneath Clouds, and also presents the elements that shape his later feature.
Shit Skin 2002
This beautiful short drama tells of a young man who takes his grandmother back to the place of her childhood to reconnect with her surviving family.
Snake Dreaming 2002
A short drama written and performed by Indigenous children about the Stolen Generations. It won Best Indigenous Film at the Alice Springs Youth Festival in 2002.
Snippy is an Artful Dodger c1925
This charming example of an early Australian cartoon superimposes cell animation over freeze-frames of live action to create Snooks’s dream world.
T
This Woman is Not a Car 1982
An imaginative examination of sexual violence, This Woman is Not a Car turns the suburban dream of marriage and conformity into a nightmare.
Turn Around 2002
Director Samantha Saunders refers to her film as a 'girl fantasy’ and it is refreshing to have an all-Indigenous cast in a romantic comedy.
W
We Aim to Please 1976
We Aim to Please incorporated experimental and feminist ideas and was a bold break away from the narrative films and factual documentaries of the time.
Wind 1999
The story of a black tracker – an Indigenous man employed by whites to hunt fellow Indigenous people – and a man with loyalties divided between two cultures.
