Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

All titles produced in 1986

24 titles

A

Around the World in 80 Ways feature film – 1986

Eddie and Wally Davis fake a round-the-world holiday for their senile old father.

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.

B

Babakiueria short film – 1986

A mockumentary surveying the culture and customs of the white native people of the land of ‘Babakiueria’, from the perspective of the country’s black colonisers.

Backlash feature film – 1986

Much of the dialogue in Bill Bennett’s film, about two police officers and a young indigenous woman, was improvised on location.

Beautiful Lies: A Film About Peter Carey documentary – 1986

This documentary explores the relationship between Australian novelist Peter Carey and his country.

C

Cactus feature film – 1986

Cactus explores both the horror of not being able to see and the notion that blindness can sharpen the senses and lift the spirits.

Camera Natura short film – 1986

This montage film is about the spirit of the land: charting the contours of myth, geography and landscape.

Chile: Hasta Cuando? documentary – 1986

Filmed in secret, this is a significant record of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his murderous regime.

China, the Long March documentary – 1986

There is much to learn from this work about China’s Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, who died in 1976.

Cyclone Tracy television program – 1986

A fictional account of one of Australia’s worst natural disasters – a major turning point in the history of Darwin.

D

Dead-end Drive-in feature film – 1986

In the 1990s authorities convert a drive-in into a jail for unemployed youths. Falsely imprisoned with his girlfriend, Jimmy ‘Crabs’ Rossini attempts to escape.

Divine Service – The House of Freedom Church, Brisbane television program – 1986

An informal Christian service is held in a suburban home in Brisbane. This group is involved in a wide range of peace activities in the ‘International Year of Peace’.

Dogs in Space feature film – 1986

Inner-city Melbourne, 1978. Aspiring rock singer Sam and his girlfriend Anna live in a crowded share house. The party atmosphere is shattered by tragedy.

F

The Fast Lane - Episode 7: The Sound of One Hand Counting television program – 1986

A private detective agency run by a couple of incompetents feature in a social satire on life 'in the fast lane’ written by John Clarke and Andrew Knight.

The Flying Doctors – Public Property television program – 1986

The Flying Doctors is a drama series set in the fictional town of Coopers Crossing and based on the work and lives of the men and women of the outback medical service.

The Fringe Dwellers feature film – 1986

This film has an Aboriginal ensemble cast, but a narrative based on a Western woman’s experience of an Aboriginal community.

H

Harp in the South television program – 1986

The ‘harp in the south’ refers to Irish immigrants in Australia. A mini-series, based on Ruth Park’s book, follows the Darcys in the aftermath of the Second World War.

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.

M

Malcolm feature film – 1986

Malcolm is one of the most charming modern Australian comedies, and probably the closest we’ve come to matching the joyful silliness of Britain’s 1950s Ealing comedies.

My Life Without Steve short feature – 1986

Set over a year, in a Sydney inner-west harbourside flat, My Life Without Steve is a challenging examination of the first phase of one woman’s long road to recovery from having loved and lost.

R

Rebetika: Songs of Greece music – 1986

Rebetika music evolved in the 1920s, combining jail songs and hashish-smoking songs of the Greek underworld with music brought to Greece by refugees from the Greek-Turkish War.

S

The Surfer feature film – 1986

Vietnam veteran Sam Barlow uncovers a conspiracy in Surfers Paradise involving police, politicians and a Vietnamese gang.

W

We Are Going spoken word – 1986

Oodgeroo Noonuccal reads her haunting poem ‘We Are Going’ in 1986.

Women in the Surf documentary – 1986

Documentary on the battle for women to take to the waves, from Isabel Letham in 1914 to Pam Burridge in the 1980s.