All titles produced in 1983
32 titles
A
Allies documentary – 1983
When Gough Whitlam lead the Australian Labor Party to election victory in 1972, it altered Australia’s relationship with the US.
All the Rivers Run television program – 1983
This program won a swag of awards and has arguably been watched by more people, more often, than any other Australian mini-series of the prolific ’80s.
B
A Big Country – City Girls television program – 1983
A group of students from an exclusive girls’ school and a group of unemployed girls hike through the bush.
BMX Bandits feature film – 1983
A young Nicole Kidman stars in a story of BMX bikes and wannabe bandits.
Buddies feature film – 1983
Buddies is a comedy, dressed up as a frontier romance, and it is relatively unknown and underrated.
C
Careful He Might Hear You feature film – 1983
In Sydney in the 1930s, two sisters fight for custody of a six-year-old boy.
Coming Up from Down Under documentary – 1983
Filmmaking is in our blood,’ says actor Bryan Brown. 'We’d [Australia] made 14 films before Hollywood had made one’.
Cop Shop – Episode 485 television program – 1983
This episode is a good example of the relatively adventurous single-episode stories featured in Cop Shop at this point in its run. These appeared alongside the more usual crime and soap-oriented plotlines.
D
Dick Smith Explorer documentary – 1983
Dick Smith records his own solo around-the-world flight in a helicopter in 1982; his unfailing enthusiasm helps sustain interest.
The Dismissal television program – 1983
On 11 November 1975, the Labor Prime Minister was dismissed. Great Australian drama based on actual events, produced less than a decade after they took place.
F
First Contact documentary – 1983
It was a gift to the filmmakers: seven rusty cans of film documenting ‘first contact’ between PNG people and three white brothers.
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.
Four Corners – Aiding or Abetting television program – 1983
How is Australian’s aid to the Philippine Government being spent? This program was broadcast just before the overthrow of Marcos and his extravagant wife.
Frame Up. Who Bombed the Hilton, Who Didn’t? documentary – 1983
Produced in 1982, an example of the power of the media in the controversial trial of three Ananda Marga members – the men were acquitted two years later.
G
A Girl’s Own Story short film – 1983
In this short film by Jane Campion about changes afoot in 1960s society, teenage girls get in trouble for acting out Beatles concerts in the playground.
Going Down feature film – 1983
Four women friends leave behind the feral days of youth after a night of uncontrolled excess in inner-city Sydney during the early 1980s.
J
Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out from Jail) music – 1983
'Jailanguru Pakarnu’ ('Out from Jail’) was the first rock song recorded and released in an Aboriginal language (Luritja).
L
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.
M
Man of Flowers feature film – 1983
An elderly aesthete who regularly hires a young woman to strip for him finds his life becoming entwined with hers.
N
Ned Wethered short film – 1983
Lee Whitmore’s first animated film is a memoir of a frequent visitor to her home when she was growing up in the 1950s.
P
Passionless Moments short film – 1983
Jane Campion’s student short film delivers funny, fragmentary tales with an unsentimental whimsy.
Peach’s Gold – Eureka television program – 1983
This series exploits a range of first-hand sources for its vibrant retelling of the history, while Bill Peach appears from time to time to explain and analyse.
Peach’s Gold – Finders Keepers television program – 1983
This series is a lively way to learn about history, skilfully blending actors, re-creations, paintings, songs and newspaper headlines to bring the era alive.
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.
Phar Lap feature film – 1983
The film is well constructed, both as a folkloric tale of a young man’s bond with a special horse and as an exciting spectacle with a couple of magically charged moments.
R
The Rocks: Sydney, Australia documentary – 1983
The Rocks was considered a slum until it was restored in the 1970s. This sponsored documentary traces its redevelopment as a tourist precinct.
S
Scales of Justice television program – 1983
The quasi-documentary style of this series adds a gritty reality to the typical car patrol of a police crew on any evening shift around Sydney streets.
Serious Undertakings documentary – 1983
Serious Undertakings breaks new ground in understanding the construction of meaning and exemplifies the impact of 1970s screen theory on making independent films.
Some of Many: Germans in Australia documentary – 1983
An Australian-based German filmmaker traces the changing fortunes of German immigrants to Australia from the first fleet to the late 1980s.
Strikebound feature film – 1983
A docudrama based on the memories of Wattie and Agnes Doig, a miner and his wife involved in the Gippsland coal workers’ strike of 1937.
V
A Voice for the Wilderness documentary – 1983
Jobs versus rainforest preservation – this 1983 documentary was part of a successful popular campaign to save the rainforest inland from Port Macquarie.
Y
Yanks Down Under documentary – 1983
This documentary profiles Americans in the entertainment business, including a 16-year-old Marcia Hines brought to Australia by the musical Hair.
