Titles curated by Adrienne Parr
79 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year prev 1 2 next
A
Age Before Beauty documentary – 1980
Age Before Beauty cleverly identified an issue that has since become familiar territory for most women in the western world.
ALP Cinema Advertisement: In the Wake of the Storm advertisement – 1946
This cinema ad for the 1946 federal election encourages Australians to stay with the Labor Party, which has successfully led the country through the end of the Second World War.
ALP: Federal Election 1966 advertisement – 1966
These Australian Labor Party television advertisements are for the 1966 federal election and broach issues ranging from education and health care to resource development, conscription and the Vietnam War.
ALP: Frank Forde, Election 1946 newsreel – 1946
Labor Deputy Prime Minister Frank Forde appeals to his Capricornia electorate to vote for him and Prime Minister Chifley in the September 1946 federal election.
ALP: It’s Time advertisement – 1972
This TV commercial for the 1972 Whitlam election campaign targeted elusive Labor voters – women and young people – with a catchy song and starry singers.
Australian Labor Government 1916 Conscription Referendum Campaign: Referendum Bullets newsreel – 1916
This silent cinema short, presented by Prime Minister Billy Hughes, promotes the 'Yes’ vote for the 1916 conscription referendum.
Australian Visit television program – 1967
Anti-Vietnam War demonstrations were timed to coincide with the five-day visit of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam and his wife in 1967.
Australia Post – 200 Years sponsored film – 1988
With slogans like 'Celebrating a Nation’, the Bicentennial Authority directed emphasis towards celebrating multiculturalism rather than 200 years of white settlement.
Australia Post – Animation advertisement – c1988
This Australia Post commercial promoting Faxpost has been shot at low speed to create the impression of high speed travel through empty Sydney streets.
Australia Post – Australia Post Inc sponsored film – 1990
The Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 transformed the post office from an administrative centre focused on mail delivery to a sales-oriented shopfront.
Australia Post – Changing Times advertisement – 1975
This black-and-white commercial informs the public of the split of the Postmaster-General’s Department into two independent Commissions. It offers a neat little history, using stills from Australia Post’s archive.
Australia Post – Express Courier advertisement – 1988
These commercials promoting Australia Post’s courier service exploit the organisation’s reputation for reliability and dependability.
Australia Post – Intelpost advertisement – 1987
This humorous TVC shows a series of instruction diagrams being delivered by Australia Post to a group of ancient would-be soccer players.
Australia Post – Joint Stamp Issue sponsored film – 1988
This program consists mainly of footage shot at the celebratory launch of the Australian–USA bicentennial stamp in Sydney’s Martin Place.
Australia Post – Lettergram advertisement – 1988
In these television commercials Australia Post attempts to link Lettergram in the mind of the viewer with the traditional uses of the telegram.
Australia Post – Letter Writing Venice advertisement – 1986
This ad was part of Australia Post’s ‘We Deliver’ campaign and produced to encourage international and intergenerational correspondence.
Australia Post – Meeting the Challenge sponsored film – 1988
This short training video from Australia Post management briefs personnel about the imminent corporate restructure and shift in image to a commercial service provider.
Australia Post – News Release E-Post Electronic Mail sponsored film – 1985
This 1985 video press release explains E-Post, a new service offered by Australia Post to replace the old telegram service and superseded teleprinter technology.
Australia Post – Olympic Post Script sponsored film – 1956
This film focuses on the telecommunications services set up especially for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. It also has footage of the sporting events that is unlikely to have survived in any other form.
Australia Post – Onward Speed sponsored film – 1970
Fred Schepisi wrote and directed Onward Speed as a sponsored film for Australia Post. It humorously instructs its target audience of executives, secretaries and mailroom staff in the efficient management of business mail.
Australia Post – Postcode Grandma advertisement – 1988
This commercial targeted members of the community who at that time were not yet au fait with the new communication technologies.
Australia Post – Post Office Film sponsored film – 1942
This is a mute, black-and-white film record of the dismantling of the Sydney GPO clock tower to relocate communications equipment during the Second World War.
Australia Post – Post Office Speeds the Mail sponsored film – 1970
With the 1971 changeover from pushbike to motorcycle for mail delivery, Australia Post purchased a fleet of customised motorbikes from Honda.
Australia Post – Post Office Spruce Up sponsored film – 1987
This program introduced a competition between post offices to mark the launch of the first incarnation of commercial, sales-oriented post office shopfronts.
Australia Post – Postpak Rap advertisement – 1988
This Australia Post commercial promotes the use of Postpaks for packaging parcels. With rap music still new to Australian popular culture at the time, this commercial was very successful.
Australia Post – Recruitment sponsored film – 1989
It’s interesting to look at the Australia Post jobs on offer in the late 1980s and compare them to employment opportunities available today.
Australia Post – Royal Tour sponsored film – 1954
As this program amply illustrates, an excited Australian public turned out in droves to see the Queen in 1954. For the PMG, her visit represented a coming of age.
Australia Post – Security sponsored film – 1989
While mail security may be a far greater problem today than in the past, here is evidence that mail security has always presented a substantial challenge.
Australia Post – Standard Letters advertisement – 1974
This ad was made at a time when postage of a standard letter within Australia was only ten cents.
Australia Post – The Last of the TPOs sponsored film – 1985
This program marks the closure of the Travelling Post Office, a mail service that had worked in conjunction with Australia’s various railway networks since 1865.
Australia Post – This is the Mail sponsored film – 1966
When the $6 million Redfern Mail Exchange in Sydney was opened in 1965, it was hailed as the largest mechanised mail centre in the Southern Hemisphere.
Australia Post – We Deliver 1 advertisement – 1988
Television advertising played a major role in the establishment of Australia Post’s new corporate identity in the latter part of the 1980s.
Australia Post – We Deliver 2 advertisement – 1988
This series set out to promote the corporate image, while at the same time promoting Australia Post’s individual products and services.
Australia Post – We Deliver 3 advertisement – 1988
This series is a good example of the way in which the use of music in television commercials had changed by the late 1980s.
B
Breathing Under Water feature film – 1991
The director’s preoccupation with humankind’s tendency to self-destruct was one factor that lead to the creation of this complex film.
C
Cockatoo Island: HMAS Success Launching historical – 1984
The HMAS Success was ultimately the last ship to be built on Cockatoo Island before the dockyard closed in 1992.
Cockatoo Island: Newsreel Film of Dockyard Activities historical – c1939
The largest island in Sydney Harbour became the major shipbuilding and dockyard facility for the Pacific during the Second World War, following the fall of Singapore.
Commonwealth Bank – Plan for the Future advertisement – c1950
This ad appeals to its audience to patronise the Commonwealth Bank because it’s the bank they own.
Commonwealth Bank – The School Bank sponsored film – 1951
The bank commissioned this film to replace personal school visits by Bank Liaison Officers, recently cancelled because of postwar labour shortages.
Commonwealth Bank – Willie Wombat: Waste Not Want Not sponsored film – c1939
Willie Wombat was produced by Eric Porter – Australia’s first career animator – to promote the Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia’s School Banking program.
CSIRO – Rabbits in Confined Populations Management Techniques sponsored film – c1955
With exploding rabbit numbers in the 1950s, the Wildlife Survey Section of the CSIRO studied captive rabbit populations to assist and improve control techniques.
D
Delegates to the Australian Labor Party’s Easter Conference at the Trades Hall Melbourne newsreel – 1928
This is rare footage of key historical figures of the ALP and trade union movement at a 1928 conference at Melbourne Trades Hall.
F
For Love or Money documentary – 1983
Using almost totally historical material, For Love or Money encompasses the role of Australian women in both paid and unpaid work, over a 200 year period.
H
Holt – Film Re-enactment of the Circumstances Surrounding the Disappearance of the PM sponsored film – 1967
This unedited footage shot by Victorian Police re-creates the unexplained disappearance of Prime Minister Harold Holt from a Victorian beach in December 1967.
I
Ikara the Weapon Thrower sponsored film – 1963
This black-and-white film, classified 'confidential’ at the time, shows the lead up to the Ikara weapons trials and the trials that began in April 1963.
J
Jungle Road sponsored film – c1963
While the film is patronising in its approach, it promotes the army’s work as vitally contributing to preparations for Papua New Guinea’s eventual independence.
K
Kylie Tennant documentary – 1986
Determined to experience at firsthand the lives of her characters, Tennant travelled alone in her buggy, camping with swagmen and destitute families.
L
Last Breakfast in Paradise short feature – 1982
Even in 1982 Last Breakfast in Paradise was one of a very few dramas of any length which had been directed by a woman.
Letters From Poland short film – 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.
Liberal Party Cinema Advertisement: The Golden Age advertisement – 1946
This Liberal Party cinema advertisement for the 1946 federal election proposes that life for ordinary people under the incumbent Labor government is by no means as good as it should be.
