Stories from the newsfront

Balibo

2009 - Completed

A tense political thriller, BALIBO recreates events surrounding the shooting of five Australian journalists during Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975. BALIBO is told through the eyes of a sixth Australian, Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia), who is lured to East Timor by José Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaac) to investigate the truth behind the death of the five men. BALIBO is the first feature film to be made in the newly independent Timor-Leste of which Nobel Peace Prize winner, José Ramos-Horta is President.

Breaking The News

2010 - Completed

For the first time on Australian television this film will get behind the upheaval of the last three years in East Timor and present it from the perspective of the East Timorese journalists at the centre of reporting their country's turmoil. Through Jose Belo and Rosa Garcia's story we will understand the dangers of breaking the news in times of crisis when reporters are exploited and news easily turns into propaganda.

Charles Bean's Great War

2010 - Completed

In this dramatised documentary, Charles Bean, war correspondent, obsessive historian and reluctant mythmaker; tells us all about his remarkable life. From the playing fields of England via the Australian outback, to the maelstrom of the Great War. Charles Bean wrote the truth yet everyone thought he created a myth. He loved Australia the way most people love another person, and as so often happens in love, Australia let him down.

Dancing with Dictators

2011 - Completed

DANCING WITH DICTATORS is a film about Burma from the inside through the journalists that work on The Myanmar Times. Myanmar has been isolated since the military denied Aung San Suu Kyii government in 1990. Coming up is the first election in 20 years and with it the end of 45 years of military rule. Australian Ross Dunkley owns papers in Myanmar and Cambodia and in many ways his hopes of forging a media empire in Asia rest on the outcome of the Burma election.

Deadline Gallipoli

2014 - Completed

DEADLINE GALLIPOLI brings together the high-octane drama of the battlefront and the personal journeys of the soldiers who have signed up for a war they believe will be glorious. It is the untold story of the journalists – Charles Bean, Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, Phillip Schuler & Keith Murdoch – who find themselves appalled by how the battle is being managed. They are flawed human beings, workaholics, and womanisers, but each is profoundly affected by the bravery and wholesale slaughter he witnesses.

Mother of Rock: The Life and Times of Lillian Roxon

2010 - Completed

Follows the story of the Australian rock journalist of the 1960s and 1970s who achieved international success in the fiercely competitive New York rock music scene.

Newsfront

1978 - Completed

The story of a top cameraman with the post-war Cinetone News whose Irish-Catholic background involves him in the fast-changing social and political issues of his time.

Only the Dead

2015 - Completed

Michael Ware, an Australian journalist for CNN and Time Magazine, is transplanted into the Middle East by the reverberations of 9/11. He undertakes a journey through the deepest recesses of the Iraq War and finds a darkness lurking in his own heart that he never knew was there.

The Year of Living Dangerously

1982 - Completed

An Australian reporter assigned to Jakarta, Indonesia, during the summer of 1965 struggles to uncover the dangerous truth about the toppling government of the dictator Sukarno.

Lowdown series 1

2010 - Completed

LOWDOWN is an eight part comedy series set in the world of celebrity and tabloid journalism. LOWDOWN shines a torch on the life of a man whose job it is to feed the public's insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip. Based loosely on events from his former career as a showbiz journalist, Adam Zwar stars as Alex Burchill, the gossip columnist for an Australian tabloid newspaper.

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Balibo

Breaking The News

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Dancing with Dictators

Deadline Gallipoli

Mother of Rock: The Life and Times of Lillian Roxon

Newsfront

Only the Dead

The Year of Living Dangerously

Lowdown series 1