Search - The Screen Guide - Screen Australia

Bread and Dripping

1982
Documentary
17mins
Status: Completed

In this film four women recount their lives in Australia during the bleak years of the economic depression of the 1930s. BREAD AND DRIPPING makes extensive use of archival footage and photographs from the 1930s to present a fascinating insight into the lives of women and how they were affected individually and as a group during this time.

Lousy Little Sixpence

1983
Documentary
54mins
Status: Completed

Through archival film footage, photographs and interviews with five Aboriginal elders, LOUSY LITTLE SIXPENCE presents a moving account of Aborigines' oppression and resistance. It shows how Aboriginal people forced the State Government to change its policy, and how the foundations for today's Aboriginal organisations were laid.

Cass - No Saucepan Diver

1983
Documentary
14mins
Status: Completed

In 1982, Aboriginal filmmaker Wayne Barker returned to his home in Broome, Western Australia, to make a film about his grandfather, Cass Drummond. The result is this personal portrait of a staunchly self-reliant old man as he looks back on his life in the pearling industry and comments on what it was like to be an Aboriginal earlier this century.

Munda Nyringu

1983
Documentary
45mins
Status: Completed

'He's taken the land. He believes it is his. He won't give it back.' A documentary about the impact of the Kalgoorlie gold rush on the Aboriginal people in the region. Aboriginal fringe dwellers of the goldfields of Western Australia tell their own story of what happened to their people when they were invaded by tens of thousands of miners in the great Kalgoorlie gold rush of the 1890s. The film shows the conditions of the survivors living in horrific poverty next to flourishing gold and nickel mines and uranium developments, and of the Maralinga tests and those who died there, as the victims to British bombs and official neglect.

Kamira: Pina Yanirlipa Ngurrarakurra

1986
Documentary
40mins
Status: Completed

The story of the journey made by Warlpiri people from Lajamanu, travelling on foot, horseback and tractor across 230 km of the Tanami Desert back to Kamira - an Aboriginal out-station. Kamira has been home to the Warlpiri Aborigines for thousands of years. In the 1950s and 1960s Warlpiri people were forcibly moved from their country into government settlements. Since the late 1960s some Aboriginal people have been voting with their feet against the assimilation policies. They are walking away from those days towards the freedom of their own land. This video tells the story of that return.

Karbara: The First Born

1988
Documentary
48mins
Status: Completed

About the First National Black Playwrights Conference and Workshop.

One People Sing Freedom

1988
Documentary
50mins
Status: Completed

On 26 January 1988, some 40,000 Aboriginal people and their supporters journeyed from all corners of the country, by foot, road, train and air, to march in Sydney on the 200th anniversary of the white 'invasion' of their country. This documentary records the events of that remarkable day, when the silent march began at Redfern Park and ended in Hyde Park in the centre of Sydney. Narrated by Aboriginal actor/comedian Ernie Dingo.

Always Was, Always Will Be

1989
Documentary
32mins
Status: Completed

Made by the Aboriginal fringe dwellers of the Swan Valley, the film documents the camp set up by a number of Aboriginal organisations to protect a sacred site in the middle of Perth from construction of a tourist centre and car park. Explains the sacred beliefs and historic struggle of urban Aboriginals.

Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

1989
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

The art of Aboriginal Australia is celebrated in DREAMINGS as we journey into the sacred heartland of Australia to see traditional artists at work. The artists talk about their work, its association with the land and its spiritual connection with their people, animals and plants. The film explores the meanings behind the works, from acrylic dot paintings of the Central Desert to cross-hatched bark paintings and burial poles of northern Australia, as it allows the viewer access to the oldest continuous art tradition in the world.

Alice

1989
Documentary
13mins
Status: Completed

Alice is an Aboriginal teenager who has experienced the ugliness of racism first hand - from childhood into maturity, at school and in the broader community. As we eavesdrop on her thoughts, her dreams of success in dance and music are close to fulfillment but the recurring jibes and racial slights are an ever present threat to her self-confidence.

Same Place My Home

1990
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

'We're in this society but not of it. They're in this country but not of it, (Mary Graham). This documentary portrays the strength and continuity of Aboriginal people and our culture, despite the changes occurring as a result of colonialism. The strength of our culture is manifested in song, dance, ceremony, the flag, Aboriginal identity and in the land itself. It is also expressed in the importance of relatedness between land and people, between generations, groups, families and cousins. An Indigenous expression and style is emerging in video and film production to relate the issues that concern us. This program is one example of the current developments in Indigenous methods of video and film production in Australia.

Boomalli: Five Koorie Artists

1990
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

Boomalli is an artists' cooperative formed by urban Aboriginal and Koori photographers, painters, sculptors, designers and filmmakers. This visually inspiring film focuses on contemporary rather than traditional work and ways of life. We see the work of clothing designer Bronwyn Bancroft and the sand sculptures of Fiona Foley. Tracey Moffatt discusses her film about Aboriginal girls, and the painters Raymond Meeks and Jeffrey Samuels discuss the thematic approach to their art and how they incorporate aspects of traditional Aboriginal painting. The artists also talk about Aboriginal identity and how this is expressed in their work.

Oceans Apart

1991
Documentary
29mins
Status: Completed

A documentary about three Aboriginal women: Rosalie in her mid-fifties, grew up on a reserve in La Perouse and now works as an administrator for the performing arts at the Australian Council; Margaret in her mid-thirties, a tribal/urban woman from Northern Territory, is now a lecturer in Aboriginal Studies at the University of Technology; and 18-year-old Britta who was adopted at birth and raised in Denmark, and is now working as a radio journalist and community radio broadcaster. Each of the women reflects various perspectives of themselves as Aborigines and as women, according to their family backgrounds and political influences that surround other Aboriginal women in their peer group. Part of Blackout series.

In the Gutter? No Way

1991
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

A black perspective on substance abuse in the Aboriginal community by following the lives of three people and the circumstances that led them to addiction. It also gives an insight into the Koorie community and how they cope and overcome problems in their own way.

Malangi

1991
Documentary
29mins
Status: Completed

Looks at one of Australia's most celebrated traditional artists whose work has been exhibited in galleries and collected privately throughout the world. Part of Blackout series.

Best Kept Secret

1991
Documentary
29mins
Status: Completed

Archie Roach is a victim of theft. Stolen from his family by welfare authorities at the age of three, he was sent through a system of institutions and foster homes where all knowledge of his true family was obliterated in the name of assimilation. This program profiles the pain and triumph of this noted multi-award winning Aboriginal singer/songwriter and his tortured search for expression of his identity and culture. His music provides testimony to the problems, the pain, the heartache and the troubles of his people. Part of Blackout series.

Balgo Art

1991
Documentary
12mins
Status: Completed

Every man and every woman is a custodian of a Dreaming that is of a mythical story that he/she shares with a group. These Dreaming stories talk about the formation of landscape that the different groups consider as their respective lands. Mick Gill is custodian of Rain Dreaming. The ancestors of this Dreaming are Cloud Beings and Storm Beings who modelled his country, some 300 km south-east of the Balgo Hills in the Nyunbjul area in the East Kimberley region of WA.

Terra Nullius

1993
Short film
21mins
Status: Completed

The story of Alice, a young Aboriginal girl who absorbs the fear and shame of her adoptive white parents. The film links the denial of Aboriginality to an invasive scene of incest which occurs throughout the film. A look at how untreated fear and shame get passed from one generation to the other. Expressionist images repeatedly disrupt the narrative to haunt us with the denial of racial and sexual abuse – legacies of colonisation.

Tent Embassy

1992
Documentary
58mins
Status: Completed

A provocative analysis of Aboriginal engagement in white politics during the past 20 years. It all began in 1972 with the establishment of a number of tents on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra. In effect, it was an Aboriginal Tent Embassy and so began the metaphor for this black-white political engagement. The program analyses the original political claims which sparked off the early determination to face the government head-on. It also considers the outcome of those claims. That, in turn, has affected contemporary Aboriginal politics which when compared with the early 1970s has taken on a far more passive and personal stance.

Who Killed Malcolm Smith?

1992
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

This is the true story of Malcolm Charles Smith who, like many Aboriginal people, was taken from his family as a child and died a shocking and early death after a life of institutionalisation and deprivation. In this documentary Richard Frankland, who helped investigate his death for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, revisits Smith's friends and family who tell the story of Malcolm's life and death.

Milli Milli

1993
Documentary
53mins
Status: Completed

MILLI MILLI tells the story of the Kimberley people from their point of view. Using the Kimberley people's traditions of storytelling, painting, dancing and taking into account Aboriginal law and culture, the film records a cultural revival from within.

My Life as I Live It

1993
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

An update on Essie Coffey's earlier film 'My Survival as an Aboriginal', made in 1978. It incorporates some of the 1978 footage and characters from the earlier film, showing how life has changed for the Aboriginal community of Brewarrina, in far north-west NSW.

Freedom Ride

1993
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

Charles Perkins grew up in Alice Springs where segregation was the rule. Sent away to Adelaide for an education, he became increasingly aware of the injustices perpetrated against Australian Aborigines. In 1965, the first Aborigine to attend university, he instigated the 'freedom ride' - a bus load of concerned people, mostly students, who visited outback Australia, notably Walgett and Moree, to escalate the level of public awareness of racial intolerance in Australia. This video documents that journey and talks to those who took part.

From Little Things Big Things Grow

1993
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

Kev Carmody is a prolific songwriter and musician with a great sense of humour. He has performed with Paul Kelly and Billy Bragg, both of whom appear in the film. When Kev released his first album, 'Pillars of Society', in 1989, music magazine Rolling Stone described it as 'the best album ever released by an Aborigine and arguably the best album ever made in Australia'. Kev was propelled onto the national stage as a voice of protest for black Australia. This film looks at Kev up close.

Broken English

1993
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

For 30 years, Arrente man Rupert Max Stuart has maintained his innocence of the rape and murder of a young white girl. In BROKEN ENGLISH, we hear from Max and those personally involved in the case. Max Stuart claims he fell prey to prejudices in the white justice system and alleges he was beaten and verballed by police. He spent 14 years in prison and faced the gallows nine times for a crime he says he didn't commit.

Jardiwarnpa: A Warlpiri Fire Ceremony

1993
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

Law man Darby Jampinjimpa Ross and other Warlpiri elders introduce us to their community's fire ceremony. Made with the close cooperation of the outback Warlpiri community of Yuendumu, the film follows the staging of the ceremony, involving hundreds of people over several weeks as part of the process of retaining traditional law and culture within the community.

Black Light

1994
Short film
5mins
Status: Completed

A drama reflecting the stereotyping of Indigenous cultures and ethnic minorities in Australia.

No More Nightmares

1994
Documentary
33mins
Status: Completed

A documentary about domestic violence within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

More Than Legends

1994
Documentary
55mins
Status: Completed

MORE THAN LEGENDS examines traditional beliefs about the Dreaming in three different Aboriginal communities in Nyungar (WA), Arrente (NT) and Tiwi Islands (NT). Using interviews, landscape, documentary and animation, we learn about the creation dreamings and their place in modern Australia.

Eternity

1994
Documentary
56mins
Status: Completed

ETERNITY is a documentary on the life and influence of Arthur Stace who for 37 years walked the streets of Sydney and wrote on them. He wrote on cement, one word, in perfect copperplate: 'Eternity'. For over 20 years the public was mystified as to its origin. He would write this word over half a million times before his death in 1967.

Where the Children Play

1994
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

The documentary takes a sharp look at the current controversy surrounding the application of the justice system to young Aboriginals.

Speak Quiet, Speak Strong

1995
Documentary
56mins
Status: Completed

This film looks at domestic violence in the Aboriginal community through compelling personal accounts and shows the positive steps these communities are taking to heal the problem of abuse.

Helping Sis

1995
Documentary
43mins
Status: Completed

Aboriginal and Islander women talk about childhood rape and molestation, the effect it has throughout their adult life, coping with repressed memories and sexual harrasment. HELPING SIS reveals the attitudes and conflicts that Aboriginal and Islander people confront when dealing with sexual abuse within close-knit communities.

Round Up

1996
Short film
9mins
Status: Completed

Two stockmen - one white and one Aboriginal - become injured in a brumby round-up. They are forced to spend a night in a city hospital where they learn that maybe they are not as different as they think they are.

Two Bob Mermaid

1996
Short film
15mins
Status: Completed

The year is 1956 and Aboriginal Australians are not allowed to swim in public swimming pools. A fair-skinned Aboriginal girl who passes off as white goes to the local pool. A film about identity.

No Way to Forget

1996
Short film
11mins
Status: Completed

NO WAY TO FORGET is based on Richard Frankland's experiences as a field officer during the 1988 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The Royal Commission investigated the deaths of 99 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders held in police custody throughout Australia.

Marn Grook: Football Dreaming

1996
Documentary
52mins
Status: Completed

Using the vehicle of the Australian Football League and the history of Aboriginal stars past and present, this documentary examines the contributions Aboriginal players have made to Aussie Rules, Australia's national game.

Oyster Cove Festival

1996
Documentary
56mins
Status: Completed

This documentary is a highlights package of the Oyster Cove Festival 1996.

Dhuway

1996
Documentary
56mins
Status: Completed

In 1991 the Queensland Government passed the Queensland Land Act which enabled Aboriginal traditional owners to claim certain specifically gazetted areas of Crown land. One such area was the Cape Melville and Flinders Island National Parks in Princess Charlotte Bay on the eastern coast of Cape York Peninsula. For countless generations the traditional owners of these lands (the Yiiduwarra) have called this their home. This documentary is the story of the forced dispersal from their homelands, and the struggle for their return. The story unfolds through the gentle voices of the Yiiduwarra and rare archival film and sound recordings.

Buffalo Legends

1997
Documentary
53mins
Status: Completed

'Australian Rules Football is more than a game for Aboriginal people...' So says Bill Dempsey MBE, himself a football legend, who narrates this story of a group of men who knocked down the barriers of racism on the sporting field. On the way they established a way of life based on tolerance, respect and an ethic of making your own fun whatever obstacles are placed along the path. BUFFALO LEGENDS allows the descendants of the original legends to tell us, with their own in-your-face humour and candour, how multiculturalism was established in Darwin, long before the word was invented and why it is still worth fighting for.

Strike Your Heart

1997
Short film
Animation
17mins
Status: Completed

STRIKE YOUR HEART is set in Broome 1967 when Aboriginal people were claiming their citizenship rights and attitudes were changing. It is a profile of a 12-year-old boy, his family and his culture at the crossroads of change.

Copyrites

1997
Documentary
52mins
Status: Completed

The film is about Aboriginal copyright and the necessity for Aboriginal communities to maintain control of their sacred images and artworks. It features renowned Arnhem Land artists Banduk Marika and Gawirrin Gumana.

Nyawa Kulila Wangka (Look, Listen, Speak)

1997
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

This documentary looks at BRACS, the Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme. It follows the Jigalong BRACS operator, Keith (Joog) Lethbridge on his travels across the vast Pilbara and Kimberley of Western Australia. On the way it reveals the extent of Indigenous broadcasting throughout the region and the use of local media by remote communities to tell their stories and keep their culture strong.

Milerum: Whose Story?

1997
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

Milerum, an initiated man of the Coorong, recorded significant details of the Tanganrkuld culture. His material is now stored in the South Australian Museum. The question is: whose story is it?

Night Patrol

1997
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

The story of the heroic struggle of the all female night patrol at Yuendumn in the Tanami desert.

Straight from the Yudaman's Mouth

1997
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

STRAIGHT FROM THE YUDAMAN'S MOUTH is the story of the 1930s' shooting of the white administrator of Palm Island Aboriginal Mission. Through the eyes of Peter Prior, then one of the island's Aboriginal residents, and now a 91-year-old, the film revisits the life and times of the old mission and the extraordinary events that surrounded the death of its Administrator, Robert Curry.

Apekathe

1997
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

APEKATHE means fair skin in the Arrente language. Being Aboriginal with white skin is an issue for many Aboriginals. It's time for Australia to accept Aboriginals as people with fair and dark skin and also for fair skinned Aboriginals to accept their identity. (National Indigenous Documentary Series)

Basic Equipment

1997
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

Veteran 'Hip Hopper' Serec takes us on a journey through the Sydney hip hop culture. We discover the four elements that make up hip hop and along the way find out the level of dedication that hip hoppers have. The four elements are MCing, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti.

Empire

1997
Documentary
15mins
Status: Completed

EMPIRE, a visual and aural journey through the dark recesses of a decaying empire; the British Empire in Australia. Through stylised, minimalist images of decay, desolation and death, the film shows how the British have impounded Aboriginal society and country. The film is set to a soundscape composed by Antony Patros, produced by Supersonic and performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Soprano Cinzia Montresor.

Stolen Children

1997
Documentary
29mins
Status: Completed

Sidney Rusca was taken as an infant from his family in Booroloola. Laura Knowles was taken from her mother who lived at Daly River. Clara Edwards was taken from Ernabella in Central Australia and Avis Edwards from Ceduna in South Australia. Sidney, Laura, Clara and Avis were removed from their families, communities and culture and forced to grow up on Christian missions hundreds of kilometres from their homes. Their 'crime' was that they had white fathers and Aboriginal mothers, and they were taken in order to lead 'a better life'. Reporter Barbara McCarthy travels to the sites of the missions and hears from the 'inmates' the pain of separation from their families and the ups and downs of life on the mission.

Tears

1998
Short film
15mins
Status: Completed

A teenage couple are leaving the mission on their way to a new life. As they walk to the bus stop they discuss their reasons for leaving, but ultimately they choose different paths and must confront their separate futures.

Grace

1998
Short film
16mins
Status: Completed

Grace lives a comfortable life with her family, however she must return for the funeral of her sister and confront the family she has never met, a past she has forgotten and the spirit of her country.

Promise

1998
Short film
10mins
Status: Completed

An old woman, overseeing her grandaughter making some damper, asked how it came to be that she was promised (betrothed) at a young age.

Just a Short Story

1998
Short film
Animation
6mins
Status: Completed

A true story based on Australia's stolen generation.

Silent Legacy

1998
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

SILENT LEGACY is Harry Carmody's tale of searching for his identity. It's a journey that takes us along the Nullabor and up into the Great Victorian Desert. It involves elements of a major Australian tragedy - the atomic testing at Maralinga.

Bush Mechanics

1998
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

BUSH MECHANICS tells the larger than life legend of outback Indigenous ingenuity - the people and their cars. These mechanics, without a trade certificate or any formal training, traverse the dusty tracks of the Australian outback and, with good humour and resourcefulness, make sure the car gets back on the road. After food, water and shelter, what's more important to a person of the desert than their car?

Ardiyooloon

1998
Documentary
43mins
Status: Completed

The Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre in association with the Kimberley Land Council, Kimberley Language Resource Centre and the Bard Aborigines Association Inc, held five days of meetings and Corroborees at One Arm Point Community (225 km north of Broome, WA) on 1-5 October 1997. This was the third major festival to be presented by KALACC and for the first time the festival was open to the public for an evening of performances. Over 1,000 Aboriginal people travelled from across the Kimberley to attend and present diverse and rich evenings of dance and song of a traditional nature.

Vanish

1998
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

There was no more terrible part of our 19th century than the herding together of broken tribes under authority into settlements and institutions as substitute homes. For the Gamilaroi people of MacIntyre River it began in 1912 with the formulation of Euroba Reserve on the northern border of NSW. Through the eyes of three generations of women we follow these people over the last 90 years on a journey of survival against oppression and loss of culture.

Leah Purcell: One Woman Show

1998
Documentary
59mins
Status: Completed

This one-hour documentary focuses on actor/musician Leah Purcell's latest play, 'Box the Pony' and also highlights her upbringing and the area her family stems from.

In Search of Archie

1998
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

Aboriginal writer, Archie Weller, searches for proof of his Aboriginality, only to find there is no proof.

Speak of Spirit

1999
Documentary
4mins
Status: Completed

A montage of subjective historical narratives about the Native Sovereignty campaigner and organiser, Kevin Gilbert. It is set against the first permanent site of Native Title claim, the Tent Embassy, on the site of the Old Parliament House front lawn. The filmmaker uses a combination of genocide theory and rap as allegorical reagents to infuse the collective personal perspectives that are the voice of this piece.

Harry's War

1999
Short film
28mins
Status: Completed

HARRY'S WAR is a story of mateship, brothers in arms and friendship that embraces culture, war and death. Harry and Mitch are two mates who go off to fight in the jungles of Papua New Guinea during World War II. Harry is a Koorie and Mitch a non-Aboriginal Australian. In the story, we see Harry grow from a boy in uniform to a man in war. We watch as he learns of his impending death and how he faces it. HARRY'S WAR is about when mateship transcends race, cultural differences and societal barriers. It is a story of how war drives men to the brink and the journey becomes more important than the journey's end.

Wind

1999
Short film
34mins
Status: Completed

Australia, 1867. In the cold, bleak high country, Jess, a young black tracker and his elderly sergeant follow the trail of a killer, a traditional Indigenous man. With every step closer, the killer delves into the mind and soul of Jess, until ultimately being faced with the choice between his ancestral heritage and the only life he has ever known.

The Healing Sounds of the Bungaran Orchestra

1999
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

Members of a classical Indigenous Orchestra formed in the 1940s retrace their memories by taking a bus trip back to the medical institution they were incarcerated in for having Hansen's Disease (leprosy). They played Handel, Bach and Beethoven with style and feeling. At its height the ensemble numbered no fewer than 60 players, all Indigenous.

Wrap Me Up in Paperbark

1999
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

A son battles family opinion and bureaucracy to retrieve his mother's remains from a white man's burial ground and return them to her people and traditional lands in Gurindji territory.

Marluku Wirlinyi: The Kangaroo Hunters

1999
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

MARLUKU WIRLINYI is a tale of kangaroo hunting that weaves its way through Dreamtime, to the present and back again. A group of old Warlpiri men transport us back to a time of rarely heard history and we follow their journey into the present. Songs, stories and dance relate the importance of the past to the present. Old meets new, youth meets the elderly, traditional hunting meets the modern world.

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning

1999
Short film
26mins
Status: Completed

Based on the Archie Weller short story, SATURDAY NIGHT, SUNDAY MORNING takes a shy, disenfranchised teenager in constant conflict with her single dad and places her hostage with three young men for whom actions have no consequences.

Peeping Thru the Louvres

1999
Documentary
13mins
Status: Completed

A dramatised documentary about a Kimberley Aboriginal woman who, as a child of three, was taken away from her mother and placed in an orphanage in Broome. As a 60-year-old woman, she talks about the things she lost as a stolen child - language, culture and country. Her relationship with her son and retracing her mother's grave in Derby, finding it and being saddened by the find. The tracing of her family in Yilyili community, the heartbreak and the excitement of the stories and visiting her birthplace for the first time in the bush, is part of the 'Peeping' journey. PEEPING THRU THE LOUVRES highlights the humbleness of Aboriginal Australia, the compassion, the love and calling for family and its role in Aboriginal Australia.

A Memory

1999
Documentary
13mins
Status: Completed

Memory is a funny thing. Something that happened 65 years ago can be as real in a person's mind as if it was yesterday. In this haunting and disturbing story 70-year-old Grace Lenoy, of the Birrigubba Nation, recalls abuses that took place as a small child living in the Fantome and Palm Island settlements, under the supposed care of the State Government and the Aboriginal Protection system.

Photographic Memory: A Portrait of Mervyn Bishop

1999
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

Leading Indigenous Australian photographer Mervyn Bishop's journey over 40 years is celebrated as the social history of Aboriginal and Australian life is documented through his photographs.

Bias

1999
Short film
6mins
Status: Completed

On the edge of the world two codgers, Bert and Reg, battle for the title of lawn bowls champion. When a little snail gets in the way their true colours are revealed.

Dust

1999
Short film
20mins
Status: Completed

Five people come together on a dusty, desolate cotton field. Angry at the world and each other, racial tensions are ignited as Leroy, Mick, Amy and Vance work alongside each other in the heat of the day. Ruby, Leroy's mother, is the only one who notices the uneasy sky forcing the elements to change. When a violent dust storm awakes, racial differences must be put aside as the five weather the storm together. Australia's history, black and white, is revealed as the storm unearths the secrets that lie beneath the surface of the land.

Koori Inmates

1999
Documentary
24mins
Status: Completed

KOORI INMATES focuses on four Aboriginal inmates incarcerated in various detention centres around NSW. Each person tells their own story of heartache, isolation and introspection, which for most has lead to a profound spiritual awakening.

Rites of Passage

1999
Documentary
28mins
Status: Completed

Australia has the highest youth suicide in the world for 15 to 25-year-old males. Why? RITES OF PASSAGE looks at the reasons why, examining several responses across Australia and cross-culturally.

Bunje

1999
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

Anthony Mundine ('Choc') wants to leave a two million dollar contract with St George Football Club to box. We trace his history through his mum, Lynn, and dad, Tony, and find out why he has made this decision, where he has come from and where he is going. BUNJE is interesting in light of Mundine's current climb up the boxing ladder.

Missing in Alice

1999
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

MISSING IN ALICE explores the issues facing Aboriginal youth in Alice Springs. The film looks at the influx of youth suicide amongst Aboriginal youth, petrol sniffing and alcoholism, and the heartbreaking work of the community's Aboriginal youth workers.

Minyma Kutjarra Tjukurrpa

1999
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

The 'Minyma Kutjarra Tjukurrpa' is an important dreaming story for the Ngaanyatjarra people in the Western Desert of Western Australia. This film is a groundbreaking re-enactment of the story made by the traditional custodians.

Geometry

2000
Documentary
Experimental
3mins
Status: Completed

Addresses the term Terra Nullius (Latin term meaning, 'land belonging to no one') the term used by the British Government to justify the dispossession of Aboriginal people. In the eyes of the British, Indigenous people were merely roaming the land and had no agriculture, social or religious structure. This was of course a falsehood and can be dissolved by looking at the way the land has been mapped by Aboriginal people over the last 120,000 years or more.

Behind the Ball

2000
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

A light-hearted look at the off-the-football-field lives of three deadly WA footballers: veterans Chris Lewis, Dale Kickett and relative newcomer Clem Michael. This small window into these very talented men allows us to get a feeling of that which is the most important thing for them - family. We see how they unwind and relax with those important to them away from the glare and stardom that comes with Aussie Rules football. From the Message Stick series.

World of Dreamings

2000
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

Travels to the picturesque city of St Petersburg in Russia where the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) exhibited the 'World of Dreamings': the largest collection of Aboriginal art and artefacts to ever leave our shores. The exhibition aims to give a broad view of Aboriginal art by focusing on some of the highest achievements of Aboriginal artists from six distinct cultural blocs in Aboriginal Australia, each with its own artistic traditions in terms of materials, art styles and subject matter. Part of ICAM series.

Sugarman

2000
Documentary
54mins
Status: Completed

Dionysus meets the Dreamtime. A unique Australian approach to addressing the problems of Indigenous alcohol abuse through the power of story. When Andrew Spencer Japaljarri, a Warlpiri/Pintubi elder from the Central Desert tells Craig San Roque, President of the Australian Jungian Association, that the way Australian Aborigines would traditionally control such destructive influences such as alcohol is through law derived from their Dreamtime stories. It culminates in the telling of the story of Dionysus, presented in the form of a spectacular traditional corroboree at night, in the Central Desert, 100 km west of Alice Springs.

Gampa

2000
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

GAMPA is one woman's story, tracing the essence of her grandfather through the places and people he loved. Stretching from Adelaide to the West Australian border, GAMPA takes us along the far west coast of South Australia to the birthplace of the Southern Right Whales, across the Nullarbor before settling at Merdeyarra on the Western Australian border. GAMPA is an uplifting, Indigenous woman's story about the importance of family and the essence of places that remind us of who we are and where we come from.

Stolen Generations

2000
Documentary
52mins
Status: Completed

This film details the history of the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents and draws together personal testimony of suffering and resistance endured by survivors of Australia's stolen generation.

Sissy

2000
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

SISSY takes you behind the scenes to give a rare insight into a subculture that has created its own space within the gay culture, and it explores the bond that sets the black 'sisterhood' apart from white gays. SISSY is an expression of gay black identity: 'We are glamorous, we are here and we are queer.'

The Third Note

2000
Short film
15mins
Status: Completed

A blind woman and her Russian neighbour do battle with sound and music when he refuses to read a postcard for her. What starts as war ends in understanding.

My Mother My Son

2000
Short film
27mins
Status: Completed

Mona and her adult daughter, Kymmy, set out from their country home to get Kymmy's young son from foster care in the city. As they travel they face and overcome many setbacks, and their past and future are explored. They argue and part ways. Kymmy gets to the foster home only to find another obstacle in her way. Mona arrives later and brings about a surprising and provocative resolution.

Small Island, Big Fight

2000
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

SMALL ISLAND, BIG FIGHT explores the economic and spiritual relationship of Indigenous Australians to the sea - a relationship now under threat from commercial fishing interests.

A Walk with Words

2000
Documentary
27mins
Status: Completed

A WALK WITH WORDS is the personal and political story of Romaine Moreton, a poet, performance artist and Indigenous woman, and how she uses words to seduce her audience and illustrate the plight and beauty of Indigenous survival.

Yidaki

2000
Documentary
24mins
Status: Completed

Explores origins, history and culture surrounding Australia's oldest wind instrument - the Yidaki, more commonly known as the Didgeridoo. Djalu Gurriwiwi, a traditional custodian shows how he creates the instrument.

Capricorn

2000
Short film
15mins
Status: Completed

Two filmmakers try to make a sci-fi flick in their backyard.

Tent Boxers

2000
Documentary
29mins
Status: Completed

Boxing is one sport that has produced some outstanding Indigenous talent such as Lionel Rose, Tony Mundine and George Bracken. One of the ways Indigenous boxers were discovered was through a series of tent boxing circuses that once travelled the country. TENT BOXERS tells the story of Aboriginal involvement in these tent boxing circuses. It combines first person accounts of tent boxing life with rich archival material of the time.

Indigenous Boxers

2001
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

Looks at the Indigenous history of boxing. A number of Indigenous men have been involved in the sport, dating back to the early 1900s, when Jeremy Jerome was the first Indigenous person to win a national boxing title and took out the Australian Middleweight title in 1912. Since then, the sport has produced many champion boxers including the Sands brothers, Lionel Rose and Tony Mundine. Part of ICAM series.

8th Festival of the Pacific Arts

2001
Documentary
30mins
Status: Completed

We travel to Noumea, New Caledonia, for the 8th Festival of the Pacific Arts. The festival brought together Indigenous artists from 26 countries to take part in the 10-day festival. One of the largest delegations of Australian Indigenous artists to participate in the festival made their presence felt and proudly displayed their art, music and culture on a world stage. Part of ICAM series.

One Night the Moon

2001
Short film
54mins
Status: Completed

A musical drama set in 1930s outback Australia. Entranced by the beautiful, beaming moon, a young girl steps out of her window. When her parents check, she is gone. The local police recommend Aboriginal Tracker Albert, but the father insists 'no blackfella is to set foot on my land'. Albert watches helplessly as her every trace is stamped to dust by the white men conducting a line search. Based on the true story of Aboriginal Tracker Riley in Dubbo.

Minymaku Way

2001
Documentary
52mins
Status: Completed

The Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony was honoured by a group of Indigenous women from a remote region of Australia who performed in front of a mesmerised audience. These are the women of MINYMAKU WAY. The film illuminates the special 'malpa' (working relationship in Pitjantjatjara) between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, as they deal with complex social problems in a time of immense cultural change for Anangu (Indigenous) people.

Whispering in Our Hearts... The Mowla Bluff Massacre

2001
Documentary
52mins
Status: Completed

This film follows an Aboriginal community from a remote area in the north-west of Australia as they return to the site of a massacre that took place in 1916. The film intertwines the oral account of Aboriginal elders with archival materials from the period.

Media Nomads: The Thaiday Brothers

2001
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

Bill and Mick Thaiday are Media Nomads, setting up Indigenous radio stations in remote areas of Australia.

The Soccer Lady

2001
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

The story of Natalie Cardwell, Mount Isa mother of five, who takes soccer to kids in remote areas of the outback.

Saltwater Bluesman

2001
Documentary
26mins
Status: Completed

Uncle Kiddo's harmonica blues playing is legendary for capturing the rich musical tradition of Broome's vibrant multi-racial background and inspiring a new generation of Indigenous musicians.

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