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]
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]
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]
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]
The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992)
After another failed romance, Vicki (Kerry Fox) returns from Europe to the rambling Sydney house of her older sister Beth (Lisa Harrow), an established writer. Vicki is pregnant, and unsure of her direction. Beth’s teenage daughter Annie (Miranda Otto) is ... [read more]
Death in Brunswick (1990)
Carl (Sam Neill) takes a job as cook at a seedy nightclub in Brunswick, an inner suburb of Melbourne. He is verging on being an alcoholic loser until he meets Sophie (Zoe Carides), the club’s 19-year-old barmaid. They fall passionately ... [read more]
Edens Lost (1988)
In the late 1930s, 17-year-old Angus Weekes (Bruce Hughes), following the death of his last living relative, is invited by Eve St James (Julia Blake) to stay indefinitely with the affluent St James family on their crumbling but still elegant ... [read more]
Road to Nhill (1997)
Returning from a day’s lawn bowling in a nearby town, a car runs off the road, trapping four lady bowlers upside down. Bob (Bill Hunter), the stock and station agent, recounts the humorous events that followed. Maurie (Paul Chubb), the ... [read more]
Prime Minister Rt Hon. WM Hughes visits Western Front (1918)
On 2 July 1918, in the final stages of the First World War, the Australian Prime Minister, Mr WM (Billy) Hughes and his deputy, Sir Joseph Cook, visited various Australian headquarters in France. They are seen arriving on the steps ... [read more]
A Fortunate Life (1985)
A dramatisation of Albert Barnett Facey’s award-winning, widely read autobiography of the same name, this mini-series covers about three-quarters of the book. It begins with Facey’s arrival as a toddler in Western Australia in 1899, traces the various physical and ... [read more]
With the Australians in France 1916 (c1917)
The film documents Australian troops, and some New Zealanders, during their first few months in action on the Western Front in the First World War. The locations include Pozières, shortly after the Australians endured their most difficult battle to that ... [read more]
Australia in France, Part One (c1918)
This documentary film was shot in the middle of 1916 on the Western Front in France by British cinematographers. The earliest scenes, from May 1916, include the Australian prime minister, Mr WM Hughes meeting General Sir William Birdwood, commander-in-chief of ... [read more]
The greatest Australian prime minister (1966)
Political expert Professor Geoffrey Sawer discusses Deakin’s role in the first decade of Federation. Former prime minister Sir Robert Menzies (1949–66) hails Deakin as Australia’s greatest prime minister. [read more]
