Canberra Today and Tomorrow (1959)

Tiger Soup

The clash of gray communist reality with the American dream. The nostalgic story of the welder Staś, who left Poland in the 1970s to work in the largest and oldest circus in the world, "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.” However, everyday life does not turn out to be so ideal.

The Rumba Kings

In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.

Undercurrents: Meditations on Power

Made from reimagined/recycled images and sounds from the filmmaker’s archive and other found materials, Undercurrents is a poetic essay documentary about the undercurrents of history playing out in the present. It is also (at its heart) about the power of resistance.

Inside Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer

A look behind the scenes of Christopher Nolan's film "Oppenheimer" about an American scientist and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

I'm Not Gay

A conflicted gay man struggles to teach his younger self about the challenges of adult life. Searching for answers inside stories from his past, he must confront his nature and the man he will become. Documentary meets musical feature in this experimental coming of age drama about power and masculinity in modern day Australia.

The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce

Eight men escape from the most isolated prison on earth. Only one man survives and the story he recounts shocks the British establishment to the core. This story is the last confession of Alexander Pearce.

Under Cover

Some 240,000 women over 55 are at risk of homelessness In Australia – a figure both surprising (owing to this demographic being less likely to speak up about their difficulties) and shocking, given this country’s wealth. Under Cover introduces us to 10 of these people, including a survivor of domestic violence, a former advertising executive, a self-confessed loner and a displaced immigrant, for whom security and shelter are constant unknowns and who, until now, have suffered in silence.

P.S. Burn This Letter Please

A box found in an abandoned storage unit unearths a time capsule of correspondences from a forgotten era: the underground drag scene in 1950s New York City. Firsthand accounts and newly discovered footage help cast a long overdue spotlight on the unsung pioneers of drag.

Monsters from the Id

The 1950s were a time marked by an idealistic feeling. The atomic age, with its promise to save humanity, revolutionized the world, technologically, socially and politically. All these factors gave birth to one of the most prolific film genres in the history of cinema: science fiction, which delighted the audience. Only a few years later, these same spectators saw on their television screens how the Russians launched the Sputnik into space.

In the Grip of Terror: Making Talk To Me

The cast and crew talk about making the film with some behind-the-scenes footage.

Packed Lunch

What is it about Speedos? Well here Australian director Tim Hunter is on a mission to find the answer to the question of why so many gay men can't seem to get enough of hunks in tight fitting trunks? Although somehow I think the answer can be found in the question! Anyway in a bid to discover the truth, Hunter has carried out a series of interviews with men who have more than a passing interest in this briefest of garment, including that of Speedo designer Peter Travis, who here relates his part in the history of 'the male equivalent of the Wonder Bra.'

De Gaulle, l'homme à abattre

Plot unavailable

The Making of 'ReGOREgitated Sacrifice'

bonus feature on 'regoregitated sacrifice' dvd.

Refuge(e)

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

Roots of Happiness

Dramatizes the case of a family in which the father respects and loves his wife and children, permitting each to develop as an individual, and contrasts this family with one where discord and hostility prevail.

No Mercy, No Remorse

No Mercy, No Remorse takes viewers back to the winter of 1993, with a journey into the deeply disturbing world of Paul Charles Denyer, the then 21-year old who is currently serving three life sentences for the Frankston murders.

The Ripple Effect

The Ripple Effect is a powerful documentary primarily centred around St Kilda legend and proud Noongar Nicky Winmar's generation-defining stand against racism at Victoria Park in 1993.

Jisoe

A year in the life of troubled Australian graffiti artist Justin Hughes.

Stalin's Last Plot

January 1953: On the eve of his death Stalin finds himself yet another imaginary enemy: Jewish doctors. He organizes the most violent anti-Semitic campaign ever launched in the USSR, by fabricating the "Doctors' Plot," whereby doctors are charged with conspiring to murder the highest dignitaries of the Soviet Regime. Still unknown and untold, this conspiracy underlines the climax of a political scheme successfully masterminded by Stalin to turn the Jews into the new enemies of the people. It reveals his extreme paranoia and his compulsion to manipulate those around him. The children and friends of the main victims recount for the first time their experience and their distress related to these nightmarish events.

The Rainbow Passage

Following a year in Cadance and Amanda's gender transition, this intimate documentary charts not only their personal transformation but the building of a life and community together in regional New South Wales.

Australia: Land Beyond Time

Australia: Land Beyond Time takes viewers on a breathtaking journey back in time to witness the birth and evolution of a mysterious land that harbors remnants of Earth's earliest life and many of it's strangest creatures that exist nowhere else on the planet.

Utopia

Documentary by John Pilger looks at the awful truth behind white Australia's dysfunctional relationship with Indigenous Australians

The Blood Is the Life: The Making of 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'

Director Francis Ford Coppola, cast and production crew explore the making of the 1992 masterpiece.

I'll Never Forget the Last Time

A movie that portrays a reflection about sense of being self, to love and to be loved.

La banlieue, c’est le paradis

In the 1960s, the suburbs were meant to be modern havens for newcomers from rural France, Portugal, Spain, North Africa, and Africa, helping rebuild post-war France. Large housing complexes symbolized this ideal, offering comfort, heating, and electricity. But by the 1980s, disillusionment set in as economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, crime, racism, and police violence took hold. Mohamed Bouhafsi tells the story of a dream that didn’t last.

The Coming Back Out Ball Movie

In the middle of Australia’s divisive marriage equality vote, Melbourne hosted a gala event to honour and celebrate its LGBTIQ elders. These are their stories.

Propaganda: Engineering Consent

How can the masses be controlled? Apparently, the American publicist Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995), a pioneer in the field of propaganda and public relations, knew the answer to such a key question. The amazing story of the master of manipulation and the creation of the engineering of consent; a frightening true story about advertising, lies and charlatans.

Island Home Country

A poetic cine-essay about race and Australia’s colonised history and how it impacts into the present offering insights into how various individuals deal with the traumatic legacies of British colonialism and its race-based policies. The film’s consultative process, with ‘Respecting Cultures’ (Tasmanian Aboriginal Protocols), offers an evolving shift in Australian historical narratives from the frontier wars, to one of diverse peoples working through historical trauma in a process of decolonisation.

De Gaulle, the Last King of France

Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.

My Life As I Live It

In her second film, MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT (1993), Essie Coffey returns to her home in Dodge City where she and the A-Team are running in the shire elections. Inter-cutting between 1993 and 1978, the film presents the fascinating contrasts of a society in transition. Some of the kids we met in the earlier film now have families of their own and are involved in education, art and sports. Others are drifting, trying to cope with alcohol and depression. Most significantly, community programs offer the possibility of dignity and self-determination. In this film, Essie shows us the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP) making a real difference. Although the CDEP has now come under attack from the Federal government, MY LIFE AS I LIVE IT portrays the CDEP as providing meaningful work and services to an impoverished remote community.

Finke: There & Back

The iconic Finke Desert Race, the largest off-road motorsport event in the southern hemisphere and Australia's fastest, deadliest, toughest and certainly dustiest race. Filmed over three years, Finke explores the race from within – competitors, organisers, paramedics, and the drive to win against the desert at all costs. Finke is a visual adventure of inspiration and danger, excitement and spills.

Bettie Page Reveals All

The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”

Wonders of the Monsoon

The wildlife and cultures of southern Asia have been shaped by one of the greatest phenomena on Earth: the mighty monsoon winds that sweep across this vast region, turning drought into deluge. All life – human and animal – is dominated by this rampaging weather system. From the northern shores of Australia to the highest peaks of the Himalayas and the wind-blown deserts of northern India to the lush equatorial forests of Borneo, this series makes an exhilarating journey through the lands of the monsoon. Along the way, it offers a taste of the variety and colour of the different regions’ most extraordinary wildlife and cultures and the way they cope with the tumultuous weather. This is the story of a relationship between humans and nature that has grown across thousands of years – all living in the shadow of the monsoon.