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Trees from the backyard of NANO LAB, Melbourne, Australia.

Could Australia ever have been French? The English certainly thought so. Through revolution, empire and restoration, late 18th and early 19th century France maintained an unwavering commitment to research and discovery in the Pacific region and in Australia. More interested in science than in new colonies, these early French voyages, led by commanders like Bougainville, Lapérouse, D’Entrecasteaux, Baudin, Freycinet, Duperrey and Dumont d’Urville, were the first to name, describe and beautifully illustrate many Australian species. England may have colonised Australia, but for many years it was France that understood it best. This richly illustrated short documentary film brings to life our fascinating and colourful French history and reminds us of a time when scientific research involved intrepid voyages in tall ships on the high seas, battling scurvy and storms, insects and rats, and hostilities both on board and on shore.

Pete Walsh has been working on a new film project since the release of the popular ABC documentary, "Platypus Guardian" which chronicled his incredible connection with the platypuses in the Hobart Rivulet, and his tireless work to protect them. His new short film called “Becoming Platypus” follows two females, and tells the captivating story of their ecology, behaviour, and the challenges they face in the waterways through footage captured by Pete during countless hours of observation.

Children growing up in poverty is the subject of Smashing Kids, 1975. John Pilger meets the Hopwoods, of Liverpool, where hunger has become a way of life during father Harry’s unemployment as his family of five survive on £1 a day. The wallpaper in their council house is torn and there are no clothes in the couple’s wardrobe and no sheets on their bed. The family have never had a holiday and Harry tells Pilger: “It would be easier to serve time than to put up with this.”

A lively romp though a century of Chapel Street's fashion history in an entertaining feature-length documentary.

A film about the end of the world: the myth that has been with us since the beginning of civilization, and the possibility made real at Hiroshima in 1945. The journey takes us from medieval paintings to 50s sci fi movies and leaves us better able to understand and deal with our destructive urges.

Australian spies are on the offensive against cyber criminal networks and foreign actors seeking to disrupt democracies. But our intelligence agencies have a long history playing a key role in secret battles.

Comedian, architecture enthusiast and design nerd Tim Ross takes us across Australia to meet the families whose lives have been shaped by the exceptional designs of their iconic homes.

WADJEMUP or ROTTNEST ISLAND is sacred to Aboriginal people. Thousands of Aboriginal men were imprisoned on this island from 1838 - 1931. Now hear from the descendants……

The Matchbreakers are a grunge rock band from Southeast Queensland who have all just finished high school. As a part of their celebrations, the band takes a three-day holiday to Bangalow NSW where they plan to write music for their upcoming album.

Dan Price, a talented, affluent and attractive young male at the peak of his career, finds himself standing over the railing on the Sydney harbour bridge. This short documentary explores the struggles of mental health and demonstrates that every story is different, but more importantly, every story matters - This is Dan's story.

A short documentary produced by the National Film and Sound Archive to promote 'Operation Newsreel', a project to collect and preserve Australian newsreel films, done in the style of a vintage newsreel.

The Wirth Brothers Circus, one of Australia’s largest and most successful, survived another 15 years after this film was made.

A documentary by Brooke Linnegar

This film continues MacDougall's long-term study of an elite boys' boarding school in northern India. It focuses on a group of twelve-year-olds during their first year in one of the 'houses' for new boys. The film concerns their attachment to the house, but, more importantly, their attachment to one another in a communal life. It follows, in particular, the experiences of one boy and several of his close associates, from their initial homesickness, to their life as member of the group, to their separation from the house at the end of the year.

Traditional music of the Trobriand Islands is played on a variety of flutes, from simple curving stems to panpipes. Songs (wosi) are also an important part of Trobriand music, and although everyone may compose and sing, people with special talents are encouraged to develop their skills. A range of songs are filmed and translated here: gardening and sailing songs, kula trading songs, songs of love and enticement, of grief and mourning. The film also reveals glimpses of everyday and ritual life: villages, gardens (and their magic), exchange, harvest dances, children in the rain.

When she was 9, Zainab’s parents made the heartbreaking decision to leave their home in northern Afghanistan. They set out on a journey across the globe, putting the fate of their family in the hands of strangers. Across borders, behind bars and onto a smuggler’s boat – the family chased freedom. ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’ tells Zainab’s story, and the story of many others who have trodden the same path. Jessie Taylor and Ali Reza Sadiqi travelled across Indonesia and met with 250 asylum seekers in jails, detention centres and hostels. Through candid interviews, hidden camera footage and in the words of asylum seekers themselves, the story of the ‘refugee’ is told. What pushes people to leave home? What do they leave behind? What do they fear? Why did they choose this path? And what does it take to turn someone into a ‘boat person’? Meet the human faces behind the most controversial issue of our time.

Sally: Behind the Smile gives a fly-on-the-wall insight into one of Australia's most beloved athletes as she attempts to overcome some of the biggest hurdles of her burgeoning career in pursuit of that all-encompassing goal, a surfing world title. A Red Bull Media House production realized by Milkmoney, Sally: Behind the Smile is a definitive compilation of all things Sally Fitzgibbons that every aspiring and professional athlete can take something away from.

"Bodyline", the word coined to describe a method of attack that involved bowling fast rising deliveries aimed at the batsman's head and body with a ring of close in fieldsmen on the leg side poised for a catch. Used in the 1932-33 Ashes Test Series, that pitted Bradman against Jardine and soured Anglo-Australian relations for years.

An intimate, autobiographical story of a transformative pair of pants and a childhood refusal to conform to societal expectations of gender.

Two of the Bali Nine have been speaking publicly for the first time… just days ahead of final hearings on whether their death sentences for drug trafficking will be carried out. Dateline reporter Mark Davis gained exclusive access to Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan in the ‘death tower’ at Indonesia’s Kerobokan Prison. They talk openly about their lives then and now, what they think of their crimes, and the prospect of facing death by firing squad. Mark also hears first-hand of the heartache for their families back in Australia, as they wait to hear if their pleas for clemency will be granted.

Using the vast and untapped heritage of 8mm home movies, Homemade History is a private record of Australia. The series celebrates amateur filmmakers and their remarkable library of memories. Colourful, intimate and occasionally out of focus, each 5 minute episode tells a small story that fills a gap in our formal history.

An inspiring documentary that follows the journey of Ryan Emerson, a deaf ruckman who defies expectations in a sport where communication is key.

Coming to terms with a century-old intergenerational grief, a descendant of an Aboriginal WWI soldier makes the trip to France to bring his ancestor's spirit home to his family and land.

This award-winning documentary delves into the events of Black Saturday, the devastating bushfires that paved through Victoria, Australia, from February to March 2009. Through heartfelt interviews and personal stories, it explores the resilience of its survivors and veterans, and the strength they faced in times of utter darkness.

Imperial Rome, between the first and second century AD. A young nobleman suddenly dies and before too long his mother follows him to the grave. Summer of 2000, a chance discovery of a tomb in the suburbs of Rome, presents the scientific establishment with an extraordinary opportunity and a unique set of clues. Inside the tomb are two marble coffins and in each coffin preserved bodies and some very special artifacts. This film is a scientific detective story to uncover just who these two people were, their status and lifestyle and, most importantly, why they were preserved at a time when most citizens were cremated.

Beneath Roads is a three-channel work that reveals the Indigenous experience and innovation underlying our national identity. By juxtaposing archival government films, iconic Australian road movies and newly captured footage of the Aboriginal motorcycle club, The Southern Warriors, Beneath Roads reinserts First Peoples knowledge legacies and representation into our cinematic canon, recontextualising our relationship to history, culture and Country.

This film shows events in the biennial Festival of Arts and the annual Flower Day of 1968. Adelaide celebrated Flower Day annually from 1938 to 1975 and it made a return in 2021. The footage includes a ‘welcome said with flowers’ to performers Marlene Dietrich, Marcella Reale, Morag Beaton, Lucero Tena, and the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Orchestra. There is also a look inside the Art Gallery’s display for the 5th Adelaide Festival of Arts. This is quite possibly the moment the phrase “Mad March” was coined!

Two boys are waiting in the Tower of London for their big day of celebration. The older boy is just 12 years old in the summer of 1483 and is to be crowned King of England. But suddenly doubts arise among the nobles about the succession to the throne and his uncle receives the crown. After the coronation, the two young heirs to the throne disappear from the face of the earth. Have they been kidnapped or murdered? The new King Richard III remains silent on the matter. But the doubts about his accession to the throne remain. In the 17th century, bones are found during building work, confirming the old suspicion against Richard III as a child murderer. What happened to the two boys in the Tower? A cold case from the age of the knights in England, in which numerous new clues have been found in recent years.

Film maker Carl Tomich wanted to see what it was like to step into the shoes of a street performer, only living of the money he made from playing on the streets of Berlin for a year.

A documentary on daily life on a small depopulated island using a combination of diary narration and English subtitles. The film uses an ebb-and-flow structure to capture the recurring events and images of life on an island that once had over 600 people, but now only little over 40 due to the move to the cities 'for the sake of the children's education.' -Ronin Films

Presented online for the first time after premiering at Carriageworks, Sydney as part of NO SHOW in March 2021, Australian artist Jodie Whalen’s "A New and Different Sun" is a luminous, hyper-emotional vision of horizonless clouds made pink and violet by the light of dusk that suggests a surrender to love and nature.

A Place Like This is a biographical short film about a man, his garden and the experiences that define us. On the 20th of February 1945, RAAF pilot Alex Jenkins and his Lancaster bomber crew of six set out on a night raid over the German city of Dortmund. 67 years later and framed by the garden paradise that he has created, Alex recalls the events of that fateful night and shares a truly extraordinary story of luck and survival.

The untold story of the Claremont serial killings. For the first time, those touched by the disappearance of three young women in Perth's affluent nightlife district break their silence. Hear from those who lived through the reign of terror.

A look at Aussies Hoodlum culture.

Documentary from 1975 on the plight of mentally handicapped children held in appalling circumstances in the UK.

Alter Ego is a documentary about virtual worlds on the internet, but ironically it’s really a story about people. Mind you, these are not just any people. You could call them eccentric. The more callous, when pressed, would say they were odd. But in each case we meet real people dealing with real challenges in an unconventional way – online in a virtual reality world called Second Life where their alter ego takes precedent.

Living memories is a community documentary project: the result of a unique collaboration between a group of older women from Melbourne's Jewish community and twelve Media students from RMIT University. Over a six-month period in 2008 nine women told stories from their lives to the students, who in turn fashioned these tales into video documentary portraits. These are stories of survival of the Holocaust, of loss and strengh; of great love, marriages, friends and children, travels and adventures; memories fond, sad and funny. Living memories also bring to life the history of the National Council of Jewish Women in Australia (Victoria), in the video oral history'Something wrth doig'. Anecdotes weave together to paint a picture of a community.

The Pictures that Moved (1896-1920) - A novel moving picture of Australia early in the 20th century. It moves through ethnographic and actuality films, newsreels and features to the 1920 features Robbery Under Arms and The Sentimental Bloke. The Passionate Industry (1920-1930) - The twenties was a passionate period - a decade of fervent, feverish activity in the film industry in Australia when over 100 feature films were made. Fewer than 30 survive today. This documentary features For the Term of His Natural Life, the husband-and-wife team of Louise Lovely and Wilton Wench and the work of director Raymond Longford among material from 50 newsreels, 16 feature films and still photographs drawn from over 70 collections. Now You're Talking (1930-1940) - The story of the Australian film industry in the thirties, from the pioneering days of "talkies" through to the decline of the industry with the coming of World War Two.

We get a glimpse at one of the Tamil Tigers' most effective weapons - the camera teams shooting the Tigers' propaganda videos.

It was Lachlan Morton’s greatest feat of endurance yet. Last September, Lachy set a new Around Australia Record, riding 14,200-kilometers around his home country in just 30 days, nine hours, and 59 minutes. That’s more than 460 kilometers per day, every day, for a month. Lachy’s brother Gus was there with him for the ride, filming all of his pre-dawn starts, the lonely time trials down outback highways, headwinds, tailwinds, gas station meals, and all of the people who Lachlan met along the way. The Great Southern Country, our film about Lachlan's Around Australia Record, presented by Cannondale and POC, is a story of endurance, how great challenges bring people together. And it is a story about Australia in all of its rugged beauty.

The Noongar people of Western Australia are one of the few cultures on earth with a living memory of the last time the sea level rose. MAMMUNG the film explores these stories of adaptation to climate change as guided by Dr Noel Nannup, and asks how we can incorporate these stories: imagining a pathway forward in which indigenous knowledge can be heard and understood.

The Landau String Quartet come together to rehearse. Together they make wonderful music and yet each has traveled a very different path to become a musician. This dramatised documentary reveals each musician's intimate story centred around the long journey they have traveled with their instrument. Leon, the first-born son of Polish Jewish migrants to Australia is destined to become a great violinist, but his life moves in unexpected directions under the influence of his abusive teacher. Julia loses her innocence and discovers her own deep sensuality through her experience with music, and a handsome conductor. Richard plays the violin to escape his stifling suburban family. He encounters the dark and fearful world of his own psyche on his travels to the city to play.. Christie, a young cellist, throws off the shackles of her disciplined musician's life and escapes on an adventure with a handsome stranger, a journey that ultimately brings her face to face with herself.

The Ending Goes Forever: The Screamfeeder Story is a feature-length documentary about a band that emerged from the cultural explosion of the 1990’s that changed Brisbane forever, and the story of a band that continues to forge their way through Australian culture. Examining the extraordinary musical career of this legendary Brisbane band that overcame adversity to carve a successful career across three decades, whilst maintaining control of their music and forming an unbreakable bond between members. All great friendships start as accidents – but for over thirty years, the creative partnership at the heart of Screamfeeder has remained true to its original inspiration. Featuring iconic songs, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews, The Ending Goes Forever: The Screamfeeder Story is a celebration of unique talent, community and friendship.

A compelling set of five stories illustrating the fragile nature of day-to-day existence in Tamil Nadu, Southern India.

Breaking the Silence follows the journey of Manny Waks who was, until recently, the only survivor of child sexual abuse within Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community to speak publicly.

Architects Peter McIntyre and Robin Boyd survey the construction techniques and styles employed through Melbourne’s first century, casting a subtly critical eye on the city’s development and arguing for an alternative approach.

THE PRODIGAL SON is the emotional story of a gay man in his forties who is reunited with his traditional Macedonian family after being estranged from his father for 15 years. The documentary explores how first-generation migrant parents have struggled to come to terms with their son's sexuality. When Ted came out as gay, his mother Ljubica insisted it was a passing phase and his father Alex refused to speak to him. Fifteen years passed with no communication between father and son - until Alex discovered he was suffering from a serious illness.

Genni Batterham was a young healthy 24-year-old student when she contracted multiple sclerosis (M.S.). Within 18 months she became a paraplegic. This film follow Genni through the continual frustrations of the day. PINS AND NEEDLES takes a poignant look at overall reactions, treatment and acceptance of disabled people and offers some enlightened alternatives to the options presently available to the disabled.

The events took place in June/July 1973 and the film was made with the help of the Mowanjum Community

Men Like Me is a techno documentary exploring the physical and social transformation of Dale Michaels, a transgender man. With stills, text, animation, colorising, morphing images and sound, slow motion and out of sync dialogue, Men Like Me breaks new ground to illustrate the (re)construction of the body as we know it. Men Like Me is not only Dale's story, but also an account of the filmmaker's journey. What does it mean to have a friend who is changing their gender and how does one adapt to such a metamorphic experience?

Could crash diets be the future of weight loss? This bold documentary tackles the obesity crisis head on, as scientists test a radical diet based on new research that could transform the way we lose weight forever.

Eskimo Joe’s sophomore album, A SONG IS A CITY, debuted at number 2 on the National ARIA album chart, reached double-platinum sales, got huge critical acclaim and won two ARIA awards for the band for Best Producer and Best Engineer at the 2004 awards in Sydney. The Eskimo Joe self-titled DVD follows the band from the very beginning of their careers, including a retrospective of all 9 clips… from the young band featured in TURN UP YOUR STEREO to the most recently filmed LIFE IS BETTER WITH YOU. Other DVD features include a supergig consisting of the best live footage from both Homebake 2004 and the Big Day Out 2005, a fanography which will highlight photographs of fans with band members, a documentary filmed in Melbourne at various venues including Sing Sing Studios where the guys originally mixed ASIAC (A SONG IS A CITY) with Nick Launay and a secret, must find ‘easter eggs’ …….which may involve Eskimo Joe Karaoke style!

A reflection on life in Mount Druitt.

Isolated and separated from their families, hear stories from the men on Manus in their own words.

In 2013, Film makers Anna and Tom Davies set off on a round-the-world journey, meeting and connecting with different people from different backgrounds and collating their stories. Each person interviewed shared who they are, what they'd experienced, their ideas on love and freedom and lessons they've learnt. The documentary is a compilation of these stories and insights. An opportunity to learn, appreciate, connect and care about people living in our global community.

Highlights aspects of food handling which are the personal responsibility of the food handler. Discusses the sources of potentially hazardous bacteria and the various means by which these bacteria may be transferred to food.

A specially produced program celebrating the golden days of one of the NRLs most successful teams. This rare material covers one of the most astonishing runs of success in rugby league as the Eels took one Premiership after another!

This documentary pierces the mystery and mystique of a dance movement adored by the West and largely ignored by the Japanese. It uses archival and modern footage of leading Butoh performers and interviews Butoh specialists to throw light on the essential Butoh themes of darkness, violence and eroticism to get to the core of the nature of Butoh.