Film & Television with Indigenous content
192 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year prev 1 2 3 4 next
Film and television titles written and/or directed by a non-Indigenous person.
J (continued)
Just Out of Reach short feature – 1979
Brilliantly acted and shot, Just Out of Reach sits comfortably alongside other films produced during this rich and creative period of the Australian film industry.
K
Keating Speech: The Redfern Address spoken word – 1992
In his famous ‘Redfern Address’, Prime Minister Paul Keating articulates injustices suffered by Australia’s Indigenous peoples and how society can redress them.
Kimberley Cops documentary – 2001
Stories of rogue crocodiles, tipped cattle trucks and search-and-rescue operations for lost tourists emphasise the dangers and harsh realities of life in the outback.
King of the Coral Sea feature film – 1954
A pearler in the Torres Strait uncovers an illegal people smuggling operation.
Kiss or Kill feature film – 1997
This Australian film stood out from others of the time because of its fresh mixture of genre thrills, narrative intrigue and black humour.
L
Land Bilong Islanders documentary – 1989
A significant historic record of proceedings in the Queensland Supreme Court regarding the Murray Islanders’ native title claim over their traditional lands.
Land of the Apocalypse documentary – 1991
The traditional custodians of Kakadu National Park battle to protect an important sacred site from mining exploitation.
The Last of the Nomads documentary – 1997
A feature-length documentary about an expedition to find the last suriving nomadic couple, who broke tribal marriage laws and fled into the Gibson desert.
Last Ride feature film – 2009
On the run in rural South Australia, a former convict and his 10-year-old son get to know each other for the first and last time.
The Last Wave feature film – 1977
As the weather gets worse, tax lawyer David Burton has a premonition of disaster, in which he is to play a key role.
The Life and Times of Malcolm Fraser television program – 2004
A portrait of Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983.
Li’l Elvis and the Truckstoppers – Caught in a Trap television program – 1997
Li’l Elvis wants to be a normal kid, not an Elivis impersonator, but his mother is aghast, 'What about your fans, what about the bank, what about the king!’
Living Room documentary – 1988
This beautiful, unsettling experimental documentary is a meditation on Australian suburbia and notions of home.
Lord of the Bush documentary – 1990
Through the complex character of McAlpine, Zubrycki reveals the issues confronting the rapidly expanding town of Broome.
Lousy Little Sixpence documentary – 1983
Lousy Little Sixpence highlights the injustice of withheld wages, and the fight for rightful payment to be made to Indigenous peoples.
Lucky Miles feature film – 2007
Few Australian films have dealt with illegal immigration and refugees. Lucky Miles does so through comedy, but without losing its sense of compassion.
M
Mabo: An Address to the Nation television program – 1993
In a televised address to the nation, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating outlines the government’s response to the High Court Mabo decision on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights.
Mad Dog Morgan feature film – 1976
Mad Dog Morgan updates the bushranging movie conventions, by seeing Morgan as a modern media phenomenon.
The Magic Boomerang – The Discovery television program – 1965
Tom uses a magic boomerang to find treasure, foil his greedy cousin’s plans and save the family farm.
Mail Order Bride television program – 1984
A hard-hitting drama about racism, sexism and xenophobia in a small country town.
The Man from Hong Kong feature film – 1975
The film has great energy and a series of superb action sequences, including quite possibly the best car chase in Australian cinema before Mad Max.
The Man from Kangaroo feature film – 1919
John Harland, a bush parson, is dismissed from his job for teaching children how to box. Harland moves to another town, where he combats ruffians and rescues his girlfriend from a forced marriage.
Manganinnie feature film – 1980
Tasmania, 1830. Joanna, a little white girl, is adopted by Manganinnie, an Aborigine who has survived a slaughter.
Morning Star Painter documentary – 1980
A portrait of Djiwul (Jack) Wunuwun, the Morning Star Painter, set in his homeland community of Gamedi in Arnhem Land.
Mullet feature film – 2001
Mullet is about how people behave and about how men don’t talk and women do.
My Life as I Live It documentary – 1993
In this follow-up to My Survival as an Aboriginal (1978), also set in the Brewarrina Aboriginal community, 'Bush Queen’ Essie Coffey has nominated for the local council elections.
N
Night documentary – 2007
The real time and time-lapse images in Night are edited seamlessly and, in combination with the music, become very meditative.
Ningla A-Na documentary – 1972
Ningla A-Na documents the activism of the Black movement in south-east Australia in the 1970s and shows how the activists changed the direction of the movement both nationally and internationally.
North to Niugini documentary – 1979
Malcolm Douglas travels in a five-metre boat north along the coast of Australia, through the Torres Strait to New Guinea.
Not Quite Hollywood documentary – 2008
Not Quite Hollywood is a good-humoured, highly entertaining look at the exploitation movies made in Australia in the 1970s and ’80s.
No Worries feature film – 1993
Drought has a terrible social cost, as the 11-year-old girl who has to move from a sheep station to the city in this film, makes clear.
Number 96 – Episodes 1003 and 1004 television program – 1976
Melodrama thrives in the lives of the residents of a Sydney apartment block in the swinging seventies.
O
The Office Picnic feature film – 1972
Bored employees in a mindless bureaucracy are barely more than automatons until released by alcohol at the office picnic, during which sexual and generational differences explode.
One Shoe Short short film – 2007
On a town camp in Alice Springs, a boy searches for a pair of shoes so he can go to school. His friend tries his best to help him out.
Oscar and Lucinda feature film – 1997
Drawn together by a passion for gambling, Anglican priest Oscar Hopkins and Australian heiress Lucinda Leplastrier agree on a wager with life-changing consequences.
The Overlanders feature film – 1946
As the Japanese threaten northern Australia in 1942, a drover takes a mob of prime beef cattle across 2,600 kms of hazardous country to Queensland.
P
Painting Country documentary – 2000
Indigenous paintings are maps of the artists’ country. They trace the land’s topography, but also contain personal history, mythology and Dreaming tracks.
Painting the Town: A Film About Yosl Bergner documentary – 1987
Bergner was one of the first contemporary artists to depict the plight of urban Aboriginal people and parallel their dispossession with that of European Jews.
Peach’s Explorers – East to West television program – 1984
Bill Peach loves Australian history and tells us explorers’ stories by using their words, cleverly recreated from diaries and notebooks, and journeying through the same arid interior.
Peach’s Explorers – South to North television program – 1984
There’s a strong sense that each of these men is very much of his time, imbued with a duty to expand knowledge and a ruthless craving for fame and fortune.
Peach’s Gold – Land of Gold television program – 1983
This Bill Peach documentary is full of events, larger-than-life characters and all the madness and colour of this most extraordinary chapter in Australia’s history.
Pearls and Savages documentary – 1921
This 1979 reconstruction of Frank Hurley’s 1921 adventure film Pearls and Savages showcases the peoples and cultures of the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea.
The Phantom Stockman feature film – 1953
A bushman known as ‘the Sundowner’ helps cattle station heiress Kim Marsden investigate the death of her father.
The Piano feature film – 1993
The Piano is a film about an artist and the story of a woman whose passionate nature is akin to a form of madness. Both themes are common to Jane Campion’s work.
Picnic at Hanging Rock feature film – 1975
On St Valentine’s Day 1900, three schoolgirls from an exclusive English-style boarding school go missing, along with a teacher, at Hanging Rock, in central Victoria.
Pleasure Domes short film – 1987
The first Australian animation to compete at Cannes, Pleasure Domes is a reflection on the inevitability of attaching associations to perceptions of landscape.
The Proposition feature film – 2005
Many Australian films present the outback as a dangerous place but probably only Wake in Fright can offer an outback with predatory instincts to match The Proposition.
Q
The Queen in Australia documentary – 1954
The first colour feature made in Australia, documenting the first visit of a reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, in 1954.
R
Rabbit-Proof Fence feature film – 2002
For many white Australians, this popular film was the first direct emotional experience of what it meant to be one of the 'stolen generations’.
