All titles produced in 1996
36 titles
0-9
40,000 Years of Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema documentary – 1996
Filmmaker George Miller is a big believer in applying Joseph Campbell’s musings on the hero’s journey to storytelling.
A
Advertising Missionaries documentary – 1996
In their quest to find new consumers, multinational companies are using performance to reach isolated PNG highlanders.
Alicia documentary – 1996
Alicia and her parents believe the family’s collective faith aided her recovery from a brain injury sustained in a car accident.
B
The Battle for Byron documentary – 1996
The Byron Bay whaling station operated between 1954 and 1962, producing more than 10,000 tonnes of oil from 1,146 whales.
Big Hair Woman documentary – 1996
An aid organisation chose to 'gently educate’ a television audience about PNG using comedy, hiring Mary Coustas for the job.
Billal documentary – 1996
Skilled documentarian, Tom Zubrycki, set out to make a film about young Lebanese-Australians in Sydney but had to change tack.
Blackrock feature film – 1996
Blackrock’s depiction of teenagers letting off steam with sex and drink and rock 'n’ roll is very dynamic because of the fluid camerawork, lively soundtrack and energetic choreography.
C
Cosi feature film – 1996
Does it matter that Cosi, about psychiatric patients staging the opera Così Fan Tutte, never quite loses its theatrical origins?
D
Dead Heart feature film – 1996
Bryan Brown plays a second generation Northern Territory cop caught up in a power struggle over whether black or white law is supreme.
F
Floating Life feature film – 1996
Being a new migrant is portrayed with amazing freshness, perhaps because the film’s key creators had not been in Australia for long.
From Sand to Celluloid – Black Man Down short film – 1996
This short experimental drama offers a spiritual alternative to fighting the system. To overcome injustice, return to your spiritual roots for healing to take place.
From Sand to Celluloid – No Way to Forget short film – 1996
Writer-director Richard J Frankland drew on his experience as a field officer for the Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody to compose this story.
From Sand to Celluloid – Payback short film – 1996
Payback, a black-and-white short about the Western and Indigenous legal systems, is one of Warwick Thornton’s earliest dramatic works.
From Sand to Celluloid – Two Bob Mermaid short film – 1996
In this visually stunning short film set in the 1950s, a fair-skinned Aboriginal girl gains access to the local swimming pool where Aboriginal people are legally denied access.
Frontier: Stories from White Australia’s Forgotten War television program – 1996
This documentary is about the continuing war that erupted between white colonists and Indigenous peoples upon first contact.
I
Idiot Box feature film – 1996
Idiot Box argues that bored men who spend years watching television, desire catharsis on a theatrical scale.
L
Love and Other Catastrophes feature film – 1996
A light-hearted comedy that follows five Melbourne university students encountering love, study and house-share problems in the mid-‘90s.
Love Serenade feature film – 1996
The director’s light touch and the performances allows Love Serenade to get away with an outrageous joke involving a big fish.
M
Marn Grook documentary – 1996
'Marn Grook’ is the Indigenous name of a game very similar to AFL. This revealing documentary contends that AFL is in fact derived from Marn Grook.
Masterpiece Special – Judy Davis television program – 1996
My Brilliant Career may have been a successful start to a career, but for Judy Davis it is an unhappy memory of an early experience working in film.
Masterpiece Special – Melvyn Bragg television program – 1996
Melvyn Bragg’s South Bank Show is the longest-running arts TV show in the English-speaking world.
Masterpiece Special – Robyn Davidson television program – 1996
Masterpiece specials rely on the strength of the interviews, which can hold an audience especially if the interviewer is someone of the calibre of Andrea Stretton.
Masterpiece Special – Salman Rushdie television program – 1996
Andrea Stretton interviews Salman Rushdie, whose latest book has been written under the threat of a death sentence.
McLeod’s Daughters television program – 1996
The McLeod’s Daughters telemovie about independent women running a rural Australian property inspired the later successful TV series.
Message Stick – Blacktracker television program – 1996
A tribute to Aboriginal tracker Alexander Riley, a sergeant in the NSW Police Force and a recipient of the King’s Medal in 1943.
N
Numbats documentary – 1996
In 1973 the numbat was adopted as an emblem of WA, joining the black swan, the red and green kangaroo paw, and the gogo fish.
Q
The Quiet Room feature film – 1996
Why does a seven-year-old girl refuse to speak? Increasingly vicious arguments between the parents are not the whole story.
R
Rats in the Ranks documentary – 1996
The behind-the-scenes political wheeling and dealing in the countdown to the election of a new mayor for Sydney’s Leichhardt Council.
Romeo + Juliet feature film – 1996
Baz Luhrmann’s radical update of Romeo + Juliet boldly shattered conventional wisdom that said Shakespeare as he wrote it would never appeal to a mass audience.
S
Shine feature film – 1996
This film catapulted both director Scott Hicks and actor Geoffrey Rush onto the international stage.
The Silver Brumby – Friends of the High Country television program – 1996
This episode features a rich drama of ancient rivalries, a brewing leadership struggle between two strong males, budding star-crossed lovers and treacherous spies.
T
Taking Pictures documentary – 1996
Taking Pictures examines ethnographic filmmaking in Papua New Guinea and explores filming across cultural boundaries.
U
W
Water Rats – Dead in the Water television program – 1996
This feature-length pilot packs in more action, location shoots and story strands than a standard episode of Water Rats.
Win Some Lose Some documentary – 1996
This documentary traces the fall and rise of three entrepreneurs during the economic recession of 1990–1991 and examines the dynamics of families under pressure.
Y
Yindi: The Last Koala? television program – 1996
A young koala is rescued from danger, but the whole species is still threatened.
