Relationships
The following clips have teachers’ notes related to this topic:
Best man on ground
Prospect Bay has won the grand final in spectacular fashion. At the awards presentation that night, star-player Dumby Red (Luke Carroll) fully expects to be named best player on ground, but the local publican, Big …
Doing it tough
A British immigrant couple talk frankly about how they survive on a single basic wage with three children under five and a mountain of hospital bills to pay.
I’m my father’s son
Kevin is a working class bloke who likes his wife to be at home, caring for him. He’s honest enough to say what he feels about his wife’s new-found assertiveness. He doesn’t …
The past is another country
Kevin and Margaret were newly married with four young children when we first met them. It’s now 30 years later and many things have changed. The children have grown up and moved away, Kevin …
Before the revolution
Four Australian women remember the world of their youth. They are from different backgrounds and cultures and yet for each of them the future meant finding Mr Right and settling down to raise a family …
Cousins
Vinnie (Kelton Pell) is sitting beneath a tree in the park, sketching from an old photograph. Franky (Bruce Hutchison) approaches him with a photo of his own. In the photograph are both their mothers, who …
Blair’s marriage
Dorothy Blair recalls how she met and fell in love with Harold. Mixed race marriage was unusual in the 1950s and both families objected. Dorothy’s sister Florence Trevail expresses her views on the marriage …
The lady from Shanghai
Soon after Rose (Joan Chen) returns to live with ‘Uncle Bill’ in Melbourne, Bill goes back to sea for four months, leaving her in the house with his disapproving mother (Kerry Walker). Rose decides to …
No kissing allowed
Yuri (Ewan Leslie) helps his grandmother Minnie (Naomi Wilson) as she clears up in the kitchen. Her forearm has the tattoo given to those who were sent to concentration camps during the Second World War …
Promised bride
Kavisha Mazzella performs a song about an arranged marriage to a man in a 'faraway country’ – Australia. The song’s story is acted out music-video style in black and white.
‘What holds your marriage together?’
Valerie has disappeared. Detective Zat (Anthony LaPaglia) suspects her husband John (Geoffrey Rush) of having an affair with one of her male patients, Patrick Phelan. John and Zat discuss marriage in a moment of truth.
The lady in question
At the dating agency, Peter (Norman Kaye) is 'introduced’ by proxy to a prospective partner, a young woman called Patricia. He fears he’s too old but the consultant says she needs a mature man …
Grief is uncharted territory
Vanessa and Michael discuss the complexities of the grief they felt over the death of their baby daughter, Layla.
Skin
The old women sit in the sand, the younger women next to them. The old women draw the skin system – or the lores of marriage – in the sand. The younger women are being taught the …
‘How extraordinary we are’
A group of women speak with passion about the wonder of childbirth and the joy of having a child and how that has changed their lives.
What was this pain about?
Liz affirms her commitment to love, but vows never to repeat (or at least try never to repeat) the experience of loss she has felt after the end of the relationship with Steve. She quotes …
‘Felicity is a girl of delicate sensibility’
In a flashback, Doris (Ruth Cracknell) plots the marriage of her daughter Felicity (Kerry Walker) to a rising young Canberra diplomat, John (John Derum). Felicity is late home, so Doris tries to entice John with …
For fear of it finishing
Kerry’s hard bitten mother, played superbly by Jacqy Phillips, doles out some advice born of bitter experience as she washes her daughter Kerry’s (Belinda McClory) hair. She is determined Kerry won’t have …
The lover
Roger Pascoe (Colin Friels) is directing his wife (Elizabeth Alexander) and their actor friend and drama teacher (Linden Wilkinson) in the play by Strindberg The Stronger.
Dating in Melbourne
Mark and Michelle arrange to date. Ange contacts Annie on the internet.
Ange and Annie
Ange and Annie were dating and decided to cool off. In this clip we witness their reunion.
Kate’s ambivalence
Kate is a single mother with a five-year-old son, Liam, seeking a life partner. Peter, a fireman, invites her and her son to visit his work place. Kate acknowledges that Liam is delighted but she …
‘Mothers don’t give up their babies easily’
Kate visits a volunteer organisation to get help to locate her birth parents. Barry (Nick Enright) explains why there is so much secrecy around the details of adoption.
A very close friendship
Penny (Briony Behets) and Dee (Judy Morris) have gone to a house by the sea for a weekend alone but a succession of men passes through, including two men whose car has broken down. When …
‘You’ve got no right to object’
Richard (John Derum) has arrived unannounced, and uninvited, at the house by the sea. He has not known until then of his wife’s new friendship with his lover. Neither woman gives him a warm …
Bankers and kids
We discover the hopes and dreams of a group of inner-city kids and a group of bankers who will pair off and work to create a project together over several months. The projects will reflect …
Fulfilling her father’s dream
Carol (Nicole Kidman) is feeling the pressure from home to work harder on her training and her attitude towards competition. At dinner, Peter Trig (Terence Donovan) criticises her laidback approach to her last race, while …
Hypnosis on the hill
In their secret place on the hill, Danny (Noah Taylor) offers to hypnotise Freya (Loene Carmen) to help her stop smoking – but he has something else on his mind as well.
