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On the Waves of the Adriatic

Melbourne filmmaker Brian McKenzie spent 5 years working on this engrossing study of a not-so-typical Brunswick household. It's a laconic, observational documentary similar to the director's I'll Be Home For Christmas (MFF '85), in which McKenzie plays a central part, camera in tow, as he documents the lifestyle of Graham (a youth in his 20s), his family and friends. After having spent so long with the family, McKenzie becomes part of the furniture - a situation which enables him to dig deep into the subject's lives.

On the Waves of the Adriatic

NR 1991
Dykes on Bikes: An Origin Story

Dykes on Bikes Sydney is Australia’s longest-running female-identified motorcycle club, and one of the country’s oldest LGBTQIA+ community groups. With chapters all over the world, these days, the club is about having a good time with friends and giving back to the community. But things weren't always so recreational. Dykes on Bikes® Sydney emerged in response to gay hate crimes in the 1980s. The group met on weekend evenings to patrol the streets of Sydney and break up the attacks that were happening. From protectors of the streets to Sydney Mardi Gras icons, this project dives into present-day member accounts of their history, why they continue to ride today and continuing their legacy for future generations. A hybrid of a documentary and visual poem, this is a love letter to the Dykes on Bikes® Sydney.

Dykes on Bikes: An Origin Story

NR 2022
Experiment One: Lost

A boy runs barefoot across a beach into a broken bottle. A woman suffers a panic attack on the street. The mundane life of a fireman is overlaid by the fragmented remnants of a burnt-out house. A deformed man's face fluctuates between broken and unbroken as a traffic accident occurs behind him. Electrical currents run through a boy's burnt legs. Something scurries through multi-coloured woods to the accompaniment of explosions. This is the world of British public information films, remixed and edited to create something new and experimental.

Experiment One: Lost

NR 2017
Moving Statics

Will Spoor is a Dutch performer, working in the abstract side of movement and mime. He has considerable knowledge of the potential of film and his intention was to extend his work into realms that were impossible for live theatre. We used a combination of animation and in-camera superimpositions to create structures of body movement. Our work on sound composition came to a head in this film with organically and electronically complex sounds. It was the most valuable collaboration we had done with another artist since Larry Sitsky; an intense concentration of our energies and skills and of his energies and skills. (Arthur Cantrill & Corinne Cantrill)

Moving Statics

NR 1969
The Grandmaster & The Dragon: William Cheung & Bruce Lee

36 years after the world lost the incomparable icon, Bruce Lee, his early friend and martial arts training partner, William Cheung, recorded his thoughts and fond reflections on the man he knew as 'Little Dragon'. Born in the same year as Bruce, by 1958 Grandmaster Cheung was spending his weekends training with and coaching Bruce Lee in preparation for his upcoming bouts in Western boxing. Today, Grandmaster Cheung teaches thousands of kung fu students in the same art that Bruce Lee began. This is his story of Bruce Lee.

The Grandmaster & The Dragon: William Cheung & Bruce Lee

NR 2009
An Unjustifiable Risk

The potential dangers of nuclear weapons and the planned new breed of plutonium-fuelled reactors are the subject of An Unjustifiable Risk, made in 1977. John Pilger begins by explaining that just a speck of plutonium, the main component of an atomic bomb, can cause cancer, but there is no absolutely safe way of storing, protecting or transporting it. Although the government is planning to build the first commercial nuclear power station fuelled by plutonium – a so-called fast-breeder reactor intended to solve the country’s energy problems – an independent royal commission has declared the process dangerous.

An Unjustifiable Risk

NR 1977
Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka’wuy

In 1976, Ian Dunlop was invited by Dundiwuy Wanambi, a leader of the Marrakulu clan, to Gurka’wuy on Trial Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He wanted Film Australia to record the first major Marrakulu ceremony to be held at Gurka’wuy since its recent establishment as a clan settlement. While they were there, a baby boy died. The Madarrpa men, including the child’s father and Dundiwuy, asked for the funeral to be filmed.Mortuary rites of the Yolngu are extremely complex. Despite some practical modifications to traditional ceremonies as a result of life on mission stations, ritual remains extremely strong.

Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka’wuy

NR 1979
Trigger Point

Every day thousands of police patrol the streets carrying state of the art firearms. Most go through their careers without firing a shot while on duty. Those who do, change their lives forever. The 1980’s saw Australian police embroiled in a bloody war with armed criminals that led to reprisal killings, as fear and violence took control on both sides. Trigger Point has been given unprecedented access inside the police brotherhood, in search of answers to the tragic chain of events set in motion when officers use firearms against citizens they are sworn to protect. Featuring never-before-seen footage and raw, first-hand testimony from police who made the split-second decision to shoot - and have never before spoken publicly. Trigger Point offers a rare and engrossing insight into the consequences of carrying a gun as part of your daily routine.

Trigger Point

NR 2014
Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali

Cremation rites are the most elaborate rites of passage performed by Balinese householders. Poor families may wait years before accumulating enough resources to cremate their dead, who are buried in the meantime. In 1978 many more cremations than usual were carried out because of the great purification cermony, Eka Dasa Rudra, held at Bali's main temple, Besakih, in 1979. Religious officials recommended that all Balinese cleanse the island by cremating their dead, as part of the preparations for the great Besakih ceremony. Villagers of limited means pooled their resources to perform group cremations which greatly reduced the cost for each family. This film is about a group of villagers in Central Bali who cooperated to carry out a group cremation.

Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali

NR 1991
The Day Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon

The sun shines brightly at the Hamilton family's Christmas lunch, the only time of year when everyone gets together, now that their four children have grown up and won the world. The grandchildren, who were running around the room and the garden, did not notice the moment when all that apparent harmony was broken, when Michael, 33, mentions that his father Jack, 62, never devoted his time to him when he was a child. . The statement fell like a bomb in his father's lap, turning lunch into a battlefield. Accusations and memories put father and son face to face. The discussion is heated. Cornered, Jack gives in to family pressure and leaves with his son for a trip they should have taken twenty years ago. Together, crossing the vastness of Australian deserts and savannas, they discover how little they know about each other. However, both are sure that something happened between them on the day Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

The Day Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon

10.0 2000
The Essence of the Game

Channel Seven and former AFL player and football film maker Rob Dickson present an amazing all access look into our unique Australian Game. Hosted and narrated by Nathan Buckley, the Essence of the Game were allowed into the dressing rooms during the entire 2008 season to take a behind the scenes look at what makes football clubs tick, including Hawthorn and Geelong on Grand Final day. The documentary also celebrates the breadth of the game to everything from kids to international teams and what footy means to them. Commissioned by the AFL and Seven to capture the essence of football, this documentary tracks a range of football stories from the elite to the grassroots.

The Essence of the Game

NR 2009
Wasp: The Port Arthur Massacre

On the 28th of April, 1996, the picturesque, historical tourist site of Port Arthur, Tasmania, became the scene of one of the worst mass shooting sprees in world history, when a gunman opened fire with high powered assault rifles, killing thirty five men, women and children and injuring twenty seven more. Twenty two years later, forty eight year old Martin Bryant, the man convicted of the crime, rots away in prison, never to be released. But many unanswered questions remain surrounding the massacre. Did he act alone? Was justice really served and was he guilty beyond reasonable doubt? WASP will rip away the silence that surrounds that black day in Australia's history, delving into the people, the places and the crime that changed a nation forever.

Wasp: The Port Arthur Massacre

NR N/A
Incongruous

“I made this film in the heyday of the ‘80s... a lot of people spending and making a lot of money in a kind of mad frenzy... advertisements, everywhere, interest rates up to 15%, 17%. Everything was for sale, one way or another... high pressure selling, lending. I figured ‘Good grief, this is all water off a duck's back.’ I used a lot of advertisements cut out of newspapers, and juxtaposed ‘important’ images (the Queen, Jesus, warships) and hectic activity with ducks, swimming around serenely in their ponds... things overwhelmingly important to some, totally unimportant to others. Ducks carry a lot of associations in the English language... ‘ducking for cover’, ‘sitting duck’ and so on.” (Paul Winkler)

Incongruous

NR 1984
Nearly Really Me

Nearly Really Me follows the story of Karla, a 35 year old professional who knows her life is fine, and yet feels that fine isn't good enough, she wants to feel alive. Trouble is, she has no real idea how to go about it. So she outsources her existential crisis to an internationally respected medium for direction and soon finds herself embarking on a trip to Vietnam for their 5 day spiritual conference, where participants gain knowledge, wisdom and insights delivered unlike any other in the world.

Nearly Really Me

NR 2014