The proper way to end a program (1988)
A recent Geoffrey Robertson Hypotheticals about child abuse has concluded with an announcer’s voice coming in hard over the credits. A viewer complains that after such an emotionally draining program, viewers should be able to catch their breath before plunging ... [read more]
Hiding the pension cheques (1984)
Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) is convinced that if she doesn’t cash her pension cheques then the government will never know how much money she has and take some from her as taxation. [read more]
Ned Kelly (2003)
Edward (‘Ned’) Kelly (Heath Ledger) defends himself in a fight against police in the main street of Greta, after one officer wrongfully accuses him of stealing a horse. Kelly gets three years in prison. Returning to the family farm in ... [read more]
Babakiueria (1986)
This is a drama pretending to be an ethnographic documentary examining the customs of the white natives of ‘Babakiueria’, from the perspective of the country’s black colonisers. Babakiueria is named as a result of first contact between the colonisers and ... [read more]
The first inhabitants (1982)
Wandjuk Marika, the great artist and poet of the people of Arnhem Land in northern Australia, speaks to the historian Geoffrey Blainey of being one with the land and of his passion for land rights to assist his people to ... [read more]
A bag of oranges at a funeral (1984)
The procession of funeral cars comes to a halt because Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) has spied a roadside stall selling really cheap bags of oranges. [read more]
Time for a throw out (1993)
Arthur (Garry McDonald) is trying to persuade his reluctant mother, Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) to throw out some of her old tights. Older brother Robbie (Henri Szeps) arrives with a most uncharacteristic offer to take his mother for a drive. [read more]
The Aunty Jack Show – Series Two (1974)
In this second series of the sketch comedy show most of the old favourites return from the first series. These include Neil and Errol (Grahame Bond and Rory O’Donoghue) the singing duo on the park bench, Kev Kavanagh (Grahame Bond) ... [read more]
Nicaragua: No Pasaran (1984)
This 1984 documentary examines the political story of Nicaragua. The Sandinistas overthrew the US backed dictatorship of Somoza. The Sandinistas then had to defend their country from the invasion of the US funded Contras from neighbouring Honduras and Costa Rica. ... [read more]
My Mother Told Me (2007)
A woman pieces together fragments of her own and her mother’s past, from stories her mother tells her. The stories are about her mother’s life in a Cambodian village before the onset of war, her own birth as a refugee ... [read more]
Harvie Krumpet (2003)
Harvek Milosz Krumpetzki (voiced by Julie Forsyth) is born with Tourette syndrome in a tiny snowbound hut, deep in the Polish countryside. Regarded as a miracle by his illiterate, peasant parents, Lilliana (voiced by Julie Forsyth) and Maciek, he is ... [read more]
Palace of Dreams (1985)
Tom Raynor (Michael O’Neill) is a country boy with a dream to be a writer. He comes to Sydney to find work and is caught up in the turbulent and desperate times we now call the Great Depression. He is ... [read more]
Romper Stomper (1992)
Hando (Russell Crowe) and his best mate Davey (Daniel Pollock) lead a rampaging gang of neo-Nazi skinheads in Footscray, Melbourne, during the 80s. They beat up young Vietnamese migrants, get drunk and fall down, living off the dole, in a ... [read more]
Playing Beatie Bow (1985)
When troubled teenager Abigail Kirk (Imogen Annesley) encounters a mysterious young girl while playing in a park in modern day Sydney (circa 1985), they both find themselves transported back to the 1870s. The girl, Beatie Bow (Mouche Phillips), takes Abigail ... [read more]
Treaty (1991)
This is an Aboriginal pop song from the 1990s with a powerful political message. [read more]
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
In the rural British county of Cumbria in 1348, a boy named Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) is troubled by visionary dreams. His beloved elder brother Connor (Bruce Lyons) returns home from an expedition and reports the plague is on its way. ... [read more]
Metal Skin (1994)
Melbourne, 1994. Joe (Aden Young) lives with his mentally-ill father (Petru Gheorghiu) in working-class Altona. A shy misfit whose great love is hotted-up cars, Joe gets a job at a supermarket where he is befriended by fellow revhead Dazey (Ben ... [read more]
Oscar and Lucinda (1997)
Mid-19th century England. Oscar Hopkins (Ralph Fiennes) is a trainee Anglican priest studying at Oxford University. Taken to the horse races by fellow student Wardley-Fish (Barnaby Kay), Oscar develops an uncontrollable passion for gambling. Despite giving his winnings to charity, ... [read more]
Sleeping Beauty (2011)
University student Lucy (Emily Browning) works a number of jobs – medical researcher’s guinea pig, waitress, part-time escort. Unable to pay her rent, and threatened with eviction by her flatmates, she answers an advertisement in a student newspaper to become ... [read more]
First Australians – Episode 2, Her Will to Survive (2008)
This episode covers the period from 1825–60 and explores the history of European settlement in Tasmania through the stories of Truganini and George Augustus Robinson. Colonisation spreads south to Tasmania, along with the settlers’ desire for land occupied by the ... [read more]
