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In the Wild with Harry Butler – Scars on the Landscape (1976)
Naturalist Harry Butler is in northern Queensland, where millennia of fire stick farming by Indigenous Australians has created the grasslands of that region. [read more]
Backchat, Episode 215 (1988)
On this week’s Backchat, viewers write in with praise for ABC current affairs programs The World At Six and The World Tonight, programs that copped tough criticism the previous week. There’s also viewers’ response to the BBC’s drama series, ... [read more]
Kokoda Front Line! (1942)
This Academy award-winning Cinesound Review newsreel special shows Australian troops on the Kokoda track in the jungles of New Guinea during the Second World War. It features footage shot by war correspondent Damien Parer for the Commonwealth Department of Information. ... [read more]
Allies (1983)
The documentary looks at diplomatic relations between Australia and the USA since the Second World War. Using interviews and archival footage, the documentary leads the viewer to question the role of the CIA and other US agencies in ... [read more]
The Sharkcallers of Kontu (1982)
The Sharkcallers of Kontu depicts the ancient tradition of 'sharkcalling’ in the village of Kontu, on the remote west coast of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea. There are only a few men remaining who use magic to call, trap ... [read more]
Billy and Percy (1974)
This dramatised documentary is based on the diaries of Percy Deane, who became the private secretary of Prime Minister WM Hughes during one of the most controversial and exciting periods of Australian history. It was during the First World War ... [read more]
Beating About the Bush (1993)
The rock band Djaambi goes on tour in the Northern Territory visiting remote communities on the way and finishing in Darwin. The Melbourne band is made up of five white and four Indigenous Australians. The wet conditions make progress ... [read more]
In the Winter Dark (1998)
In an isolated Australian valley, something or someone is killing native animals and livestock in the night. Maurice Stubbs (Ray Barrett), an aging farmer, finds a dead kangaroo with its throat torn out. He believes it’s been killed by a ... [read more]
The Fourth Wish (1974)
James Casey (John Meillon) is a single father attempting to grant his terminally ill son Sean (Mark Shields-Brown) three wishes before he dies. Sean wants to own a dog, be reunited with his mother and to meet the Queen. To ... [read more]
The Dismissal (1983)
On 11 November 1975, the Labor Prime Minister was dismissed by the Queen’s representative in Australia, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. The Dismissal brings to life the events leading up to this extraordinary event that shook the nation. The drama ... [read more]
The Bones of Building (1956)
This is an instructional documentary made by the Waterside Workers’ Federation Film Unit on safety in the construction industry. It dramatises the case of Bill Smith (Dick Hackett) to illustrate how dangerous accidents can occur on building sites if workers ... [read more]
The Man from Kangaroo (1919)
Former athlete John Harland (Snowy Baker) is a parson on probation in a small Australian country town. When word spreads that he has been teaching local children how to box, outraged parents demand that he is removed from office. Harland ... [read more]
Ask the Leyland Brothers – Episode 23 (1976)
In Ask the Leyland Brothers, adventurers Mike and Mal Leyland travel to different parts of Australia to make short documentary segments. Every story is a response to letters from viewers asking the Leyland Brothers to cover a person, place or ... [read more]
Dead to the World (1991)
Alexandra (Agnieszka Perepeczko) owns a boxing gym in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown. Her fierce rival is Pearl Wilkinson (Lynette Curran), a corrupt local businesswoman and political candidate. Pearl is in league with Keats (John Doyle), a shady property ... [read more]
The Goddess of 1967 (2000)
A Japanese man (Rikiya Kurokawa) comes to Australia to buy his dream car, a 1967 Citroën DS, known by collectors as a ‘goddess’ (because the letters in French sound like ‘déesse’). A blind woman (Rose Byrne) answers the door at ... [read more]
The Book of Revelation (2006)
Daniel (Tom Long) and Bridget (Anna Torv) are the stars of a modern dance company, run by Isabel (Greta Scacchi). During rehearsals for a new show, Daniel goes out to buy cigarettes for Bridget and disappears. He returns 12 days ... [read more]
Compass – Changi Days, POW Poets (2003)
When 22,000 Australian soldiers were taken prisoner by the Japanese on the Malay Peninsula early in 1942, they disappeared into the vast prison camp called Changi on Singapore Island. The soldiers had to find ways of overcoming both the physical ... [read more]
The Last of the Nomads (1997)
A feature-length documentary about an expedition into the Gibson desert to find the last suriving nomadic couple, Warri and Yatungka. After breaking tribal marriage laws, they fled into the desert and have not been seen since. Using historical footage and ... [read more]
In a Savage Land (1999)
Soon after getting married, and just after the outbreak of the Second World War, Dr Phillip Spence (Martin Donovan) and his former student Evelyn (Maya Stange) set out for Papua New Guinea to study the culture of the Trobriand Islanders. ... [read more]
The Battleships (2000)
A four-hour documentary miniseries examining the rise in importance of the battleship from the wooden sailing ships of the Elizabethan age to the dreadnoughts of modern history. [read more]