Discoveries from Australia World Cinema

A horrific schoolroom accident involving Mr Jones' son sparks a most unusual case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

A young man named Phillip finds himself in a purgatory reality that's littered with clues of his past life. From the discovery of his own corpse to the mysterious connection with a woman scheduled for an abortion, Phillip slowly reveals this doomed fate by his own hands.

Ann (Kerry Walker) cleans for a living. She confronts problems like a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt from the carpet. She shares everything she has with her two moody children (Noah Taylor, Sarah Hooper) and her equally erratic neighbours. She also shares everything her rich and constantly out-of-town employers have. While Ann vacuums her clients’ penthouses, her friends enjoy the million dollar views, luxury appointments, home gyms, cocktails by the pool - the things they have always wanted, but could never in their wildest dreams afford.

Friends and family gather around the death bed of Gavin, where they assist in the dying man's suicide. But though Gavin's pain has been laid to rest, the grief felt by everyone there has only begun, and Walking on Water compassionately follows the attempts of Gavin's closest friends Anna and Charlie to recover from their loss.

Joe Cross took viewers on his journey from overweight and sick to healthy and fit via a 60-day juice fast in the award-winning Fat Sick and Nearly Dead. With Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead 2, he looks at keeping healthy habits long-term.

Australia’s El Dorado was found by Lewis Harold Bell Lasseter – if we believe his claims in the late 1800s to have discovered a vast gold deposit in central Australia. This mysterious place has never again been found, and many believe it doesn’t exist. But one thing is certain: Lasseter was a larger-than-life character. Seen by some as an eccentric conman, he was ridiculed for his extravagant assertions, which he held until his tragic end. But Lasseter remains the embodiment of the Australian folk hero, who lived a life full of incredible adventures, tall tales and outrageous claims – including a possible faked death and his insistence that he designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Rumored to be haunted, five teens take shelter in an abandoned slaughterhouse, only to discover this place is home to much darker forces.

A man is tied to a chair. Two men threaten him with a gun. A phone call will change everything.

Host Steve Irwin, "The Crocodile Hunter," in his last documentary, teams up with oceanographer Phillippe Cousteau to explore the deadliest sea creatures living in the waters between Australia's Gold Coast and the Great Barrier Reef.

The Remarkable Mr Kaye is a blatantly biased portrait by filmmaker Paul Cox about the life of Norman Kaye - actor, musician and compassionate lover of life. Norman Kaye and Paul Cox first met in Melbourne in 1967. Norman, a music teacher and 'after hours' actor and Paul, a stills photographer, discovered in each other a mutual desire to explore their ideas and dreams through film. So began a 36-year working relationship that ceased only as the curtains of Alzheimer's Disease gradually closed around Kaye. There are few films by Paul Cox that are without some significant contribution, on-screen or off, by Kaye. Whether as lead actor or in a supporting role; as composer or performer, Kaye influenced everyone around him with guileless enthusiasm and humour. The Remarkable Mr Kaye includes film extracts and personal memories in a moving film that is homage to friendship and a creative partnership that shaped and changed Paul Cox's life.

Hec, a sacked taxation clerk, seeks fame and fortune using the world of credit cards. Unfortunately for him, and the banks, he has no concept of credit card limit.

After years of estrangement, trans woman Davina Savage returns home for Christmas with her new boyfriend. Expecting her transition to be the focus, it’s instead overshadowed by family secrets and lies which threaten not only their lives – but another Christmas lunch.

A twelve year old boy and a common criminal are being transported in the same ship from England to Australia in the last century. When the ship wrecked they happen to be the only survivors of the catastrophe. Now they have to get along with each other and finally become friends.

A wild, prosecco-fulled road trip takes an interesting turn with the pick-up of a hitchhiker.

An American military man moves his family to Australia to undergo training in submarine warfare, providing new challenges for his wife and their developmentally disabled son.

A gardener working at a resort on the island of La Palma decides to go to the top of the volcano to plant a garden amidst the ruins. Meanwhile, a young girl vacationing at the same hotel feels bored, reflects on utopia, and searches for happiness.

Step into the world of the original Mad Max movie and take a rare behind the scenes look at the making of this groundbreaking film.

Ron, a young man in his late teens or early 20s, but emotionally younger, has no visible, employable assets, yet rails at his status in life -- blaming everyone for the fact that his dreams are not coming true.

Sam, a nine year old boy, makes a solitary journey to school through the stark landscape near the commission flats where he lives. The imaginary world, as told by a far-away older male storyteller, his only solace. An encounter with two young teenagers presents both a temptation and a threat to Sam.

In a world at the brink of the 21st century, where strict social stratification is rigidly enforced, and the only manifestation of violence is in magazine pages, a photographer whose special talent is mixing violence and sex, is told to find a new girl whose freshness will rejuvenate the pages of the magazine.

Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

An experimental documentary on the life and death of Juanita Nielsen in the form of a non-linear video installation.

Jeff and Peter live together, but their characters are worlds apart. Jeff is a messy, hippy musician, while Peter is a tidy, almost obsessive, office worker. As a couple, they struggle for connection. While Peter finds pleasure in the steamy solitude of the shower, Jeff explores his sensual delights in an imaginary world of exotic dreams.

After a drug-fueled car crash, ex-private schoolboys Ayden and Jesse escape into the Melbourne CBD and are plunged into a night of unbridled debauchery and rapidly escalating violence.

Still hurting after their breakup, Tabby's stunned when she comes face to face with Heidi at a friend's sleepover. Forced to spend the night together - can Tabby and Heidi put the past behind them? Or will they fall in love again?

Welcome to the far-famed and most reliable Balanced Particle Freeway, a magical adventure that can take you anywhere in the world in no time at all! That's what the dragon Mizuchi tells Lili and Bede when he unexpectedly crash lands in their backyard. The children discover that there is an entrance to the Balanced Particle Freeway just outside their back gate and it catapults them from school holiday boredom into high adventure.

Lawyer Jeff Warren takes over a compensation case after the sudden death of one of his legal partners. His subsequent investigations, and growing obsession with the enigmatic Ellen Fielding, compromise his values and his view of himself as a winner. His attempts to solve the complex intrigues lead him to be accused of the murder of Ellen's husband, Harry, and even his longtime partner and friend, Alison, finds it difficult to believe that he is innocent. His moral dilemma leads him into a final graphic confrontation, with unexpected results.

Man. is the story of Arc, an alien, who works with Rox and for Qe in a 9-5 office workspace. However, when the "Man" arrives, an alien story takes this world by storm.

A wild ride through the last days of high school with our anti-hero Hal alongside his slacker/jock mates. Amongst the hilarious universal teenage stupidity and chaos of the penultimate end of school house party it becomes glaringly obvious Hal needs to stop cruising through life to face his fears and follow his heart.

It's the beginning of the 1980s boom in Western Australia. Larrikin brothers Ray, Brian and Peter Mickelberg spend their days abalone fishing...

A highly stylized metaphorical tale about the brutalization of employees under corporate culture.

Visual observation of psychic phenomena including psychic surgery, prior life regressions, skin vision, metal bending, and tongue skewing.

Reece tries to find the courage to come out to his family and friends.

With unprecedented, intimate access to the private life of Courtney Barnett, this innovative and stylised 16mm feature documentary follows a paradoxically introverted performer and anti-influencer, who, at the height of success, is ready to walk away. Long-time collaborator Danny Cohen’s feature documentary reveals a woman who finds power in sharing her vulnerability. Recording her innermost thoughts on a Dictaphone over a period of three years, Courtney begins her slow acceptance of Danny Cohen’s camera. This unique filming process mirrors Courtney’s gradual search for purpose and emergence as an artist embracing her place in the world.

Ann (Kerry Walker) cleans for a living. She confronts problems like a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt from the carpet. She shares everything she has with her two moody children (Noah Taylor, Sarah Hooper) and her equally erratic neighbours. She also shares everything her rich and constantly out-of-town employers have. While Ann vacuums her clients’ penthouses, her friends enjoy the million dollar views, luxury appointments, home gyms, cocktails by the pool - the things they have always wanted, but could never in their wildest dreams afford.

A stop motion/collaged based independent short film plays with the recontextualisation of memories and how time distorts them.

The Tasmanian Tiger twists and turns depending on how it's seen. Sheep-killing beast or tragic victim of human induced extinction. Ancient painting on a rock or vivid ancestor spirit. Lost forever, or a timely reminder to respect the connection between human and animal, culture, nature and country. In stunning landscapes across Australia where Thylacines once roamed, people from wide-ranging traditions share their experiences: First Nations artists, rangers and custodians; biologists, bone hunters and archaeologists. Multiple insights combine to throw light on Australia's most wanted animal.

Dino Bird is a visually spectacular one-hour film that explores the life of the endangered southern cassowary through the eyes of matriarch Bertha, as she and her family strive to survive in the tropics of northern Queensland in the oldest rainforest on Earth. Over the course of one tumultuous season, Bertha, her partner and her chicks battle fearsome predators and formidable rains, but also play an invaluable role in sustaining life in this ecological hotspot. Dino Bird is an intimate and rarely seen portrait of one of Australia's last remaining southern cassowaries.

We first meet The Darcys, a poor, working class family of tough Irish stock through whose eyes we hear their story. A story that centres on the bittersweet first and last loves of Roie, who becomes a woman too quickly living among the tenement houses, razor gangs, brothels and sly-grog shops of inner city Sydney.

Just as Galeen and Wegener's Der Golem (1915) can be seen as a testament to early German film artistry, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) symbolizes both the birth of the Australian film industry and the emergence of an Australian cinema identity. Even more significantly, it heralds the emergence of the feature film format. However, only fragments of the original production of more than one hour are known to exist, preserved at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra; Efforts at reconstruction have made the film available to modern audiences.

A disturbing drama about a young mother who physically abuses her baby. Feeling overwhelmed and aware that she's not coping after the birth of her third child, she sends desperate cries for help. But her mother, husband, neighbour and clinic sister do not recognise the seriousness of the situation until the baby ends up in hospital with a fractured skull. A heart-wrenching film that illustrates the experiences of many women who suffer from post-natal depression.

From the moment Peter Daicos stepped onto the playing fields in a Collingwood guernsey it was obvious that he was different from other players. The Peter Daicos story follows the Macedonian Marvel's rise to football's highest peak and is essential viewing for all lovers of football at it's best.

Denny, a free spirit and artist falls for Ryan, a straight laced lawyer. When Denny questions gender their love is tested.

A man travels back in time to force his 10 year old self to learn guitar, so that he can get more action with the ladies in the present day.

A young, restless Jewish mother and her family move to an idyllic country property at the base of a mystical and sacred Aboriginal mountain (Gulaga, or “Mother Mountain”), with the hope of starting a new life. Still haunted by a marriage break-up and a strained relation with her parents, she struggles to find a meaningful connection with her new partner. When her daughter is bullied at the local school, an enigmatic Indigenous boy Ren comes to her aid and opens her eyes to the magic of the mountain and its bucolic surrounds. But an unexpected visit from her parents reopens old wounds, with unexpected consequences.

A customer tells a cautionary tale about opening unknown boxes. Part of series of short films animating real conversations between a 2nd hand shop worker and his customers.

A privileged family, gathered for a wake, find their perfect home under attack from the desperate survivors of a parasitic pandemic.

It's a whimsical romp through Wonderland when Alice falls down the rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange land filled with a fabulous menagerie of curious characters.

In the early ‘70s, founding member of Australian surf magazine Tracks, Albert Falzon, began filming off the North Coast of New South Wales, Hawaii, and Indonesia. He set out to make a film “that was a reflection of the spirit of surfing at the time” and the end result, Morning of the Earth, proved its worth as a vital document of surf culture and a powerful nature film.

Set in 90s Country Queensland, Granite Highway follows Alice, a lonely motel receptionist, who has a strange encounter with a guest during the mysterious disappearance of a young woman.

Commissioned for the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (ACMI) exhibition The Future & Other Fictions, this essayistic collage work explores the cinematic world of cyberpunk, from sprawling dystopian megacities to the digital playground of cyberspace.

A 19th-century San Francisco detective named Tex Kinnane is sent "Down Under" to nab shyster lawyer Vincent Moller. Several comparisons are made between the American Wild West and the equally treacherous Australian outback.

A young girl comes of age in the Australian bush amid natural disaster and family tragedy.

A photographic journey compiled from journals, archival footage and photographs of an Australian military photographer, Sir Hubert Wilkins in 1931 as he went from New York to the North Pole in an old WWI submarine to explore the Arctic Ocean. Included on dvd are a brief history of the submarine and photographic gallery of Wilkins.

A poignant drama set in 1970s Australia about a newly-single father’s efforts to weather the turbulence of change – in his life and in the world around him – while a new immigrant endeavours to find her place in a foreign land.

Adultery tears apart a long-standing friendship. Based on the opera La Cavalleria Rusticana.

A socialite is kidnapped by a group but it goes wrong. The group is now on the run and hides out in the "Inn Deep".

With her career on the line, a decorator must work with an unexpected partner to showcase a house for an upcoming Christmas gala.

The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.

A Charasmatic Demon Hosts a Gameshow to Manipulate Victims in Style