Discoveries from Australia World Cinema

Two young men have to battle monsters, freaks and many other horrors inside a building to rescue their friend from the evil Pirate Baby.

A surreal and experimental work that critiques comfort and complacency. Through fragmented imagery and atmosphere, Static! explores how familiarity can become a trap and questions the structures people build around themselves to avoid change.

A broken relationship between Dahlia and her mother are torn further when an old crone trespasses on their property, transferring a curse of horrors onto the family.

Short lost Australian film based on the story of Cinderella

A man who decides to make his own clothes

Arthur, a struggling playwright, recasts Georgia as the new lead of his make-or-break stage adaptation. As he grows closer to the aspiring actress, he must overcome his checkered past with her predecessor, Violet, or risk losing his new flame.

Isolated and maligned by her peers, a woodworker crafts a more assured self-image. Singular in focus and with a restrained, refined aesthetic, Craftsman is an engrossing exploration of cultural identity, agency and empowerment.

Carmen has just graduated from her filmmaking course at university. Unable to find an outlet for her talents she decides to make a porno. After all, how hard can it be?

A punk sapphic couple attempt to wipe away their drug debt in Adelaide's seedy southern suburbs.

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.

A man, a woman, and some first date nerves - sometimes just being human is embarrassing!

When the difference between being early and on-time is a crime, a regular man must break into his neighbour’s house to make sure he is on time.

A poor taxi driver offered a chance for a better financial future must weigh up the cost of walking away from what he most values. // In a world first omnibus collaboration between emerging Asian movie powerhouses, China, Korea and Australia, comes the classic adaptation of Loa She’s The Rickshaw Boy. Set in three locations, across three countries each thirty minute chapter tells the story of one man’s struggle for survival amidst the age of disruptive technology and explores the intimate relationship that has come to exist between man and machine and the evolution of that relationship.

A grief-stricken young woman, plagued by sleep paralysis and the mysterious beings that haunt her visions, finds that she has more demons to face than just those lurking in her bedroom.

A documentary that tells the epic life story of Alfreda Glynn, 78-year-old Aboriginal woman, stills photographer, co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), and Imparja TV, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, radical, pacifist, grumpy old woman, who in equal measure loves the limelight and total privacy. Part bio-pic, part social history, it details the life of a woman born beneath a tree north of Alice Springs in 1939, her childhood living under the Aboriginal Protection policies and the impact, both good and bad they had on her life.

From the brain that brought you millionaire cats eating Viennetta, gypsy cuddles and nanna wanks, comes a brand spanking new hour of mind blending internal self-hatred, paranoia and comedy, because you have to put comedy in it.

Rhys Gilday, a man on the autism spectrum, and his love of AFL umpires, shine a spotlight on the game’s most misunderstood figures. No Prior Opportunity is a heartwarming, funny and powerful tribute to passion, exclusion and resilience on the fringes of fandom.

Threshold is a deeply personal exploration of what it means to have a little machine as part of your body, a portrayal of the Deaf experience rarely seen. The acceptance of a cochlear implant is not an automatic, seamless entry to a world of sound but rather a chaotic understanding of what it is like to hear.

Filmmakers Sam and Amy journey into rural Australia to explore how the legacy of an American legend has transmitted and warped itself over time, and across the globe, resulting in the 30th annual Parkes Elvis Festival.

An intergalactic alien race invades Earth, challenging the planet to a game of Basketball Slam Dunk. With the game receiving little web traffic in its 2 years of operation, the race begins to find the players to save Earth.

Each night Megan and Liam dream about each other but then wake up alone. Will they ever find each other in the real world?

The Maralinga people survive aggressive colonisation, including dispossession to enable atomic testing, and through their tenacious spirit and cultural strength fight to retain their country.

Australia’s most notorious detective, Roger “The Dodger” Rogerson hooks up with the Wild Colonial Psychos in an on-stage extravaganza not to be missed. Hear the REAL stories of Australia’s criminal underbelly told by those that were there on both sides of the law. The Dodger and Mark “Chopper” Read - the cops and the robbers! And if that’s not enough to get your blood racing, wait till you get a load of life from the footballer, adman, movie star, lunatic that is Mark “Jacko” Jackson

Blowin' in the Wind examines the secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its weaponry on Australian soil. It looks at the impact of recycled uranium weapons and the far-reaching physical and moral effects on every Australian. The film's release has been timely as the Australian government currently moves to approve more uranium mines while arguing the contrary - that by going nuclear Australia is being both 'safe' and 'green'.

The Blue Mountains Community Land Trust

Looking Black explores the impact of Indigenous storytelling at the ABC, and how it has created deep and honest conversations about the experience of First Nations journalists, storytellers, and presenters.

Frankie and Charlie have moved to a tiny house. They regret it. It’s Christmas Eve. Frankie is miserable. Charlie’s organised a festive family lunch. Then Charlie finds a disoriented cockatiel by the river. She tucks him into a box and brings him inside. Little do they know – this bird has its own agenda. Nobody seems to notice something strange has started falling from the sky.

A customer tells a cautionary tale of the dangers of public transport. Part of a series of short films animating real life conversations between a 2nd hand shop worker and their customers.

A young man is trapped in a bleak existence. His solitary life as a student seems devoid of inspiration until he returns home and immerses himself in the world of cinema. Placing a DVD into the player, he is transported into a kaleidoscope of color and creativity.

A man recounts an argument between himself and his former lover. Yet things do not seem to add up.

A short documentary following a mother during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Edgar is a lonely crow who just wants to make a friend. Unfortunately for his target, Elena, he goes about it in the worst way possible.

Emma and Peterson encounter their fierce predator Voyte Parker, a cop confronts his son's murderer, and a man finds his wife is cheating on him. Intersecting story lines; murderers, coppers, teachers and teenagers.

A relationship of a mother and daughter that are broken, because of mother's disruption to daughter's plan to move out.

Set in 1970's Melbourne at a school organized creek cleanup, a South African student attempts to circumvent her bully who has long held racial prejudices against her.

A musical comedy special

One of only two living mammals to lay eggs, the platypus has baffled and inspired the scientific community for hundreds of years. Three years in the making, this stunning natural history film takes us down the East Coast of Australia to the many serenely beautiful habitats of the platypus. Technology specially created for this film captures images from inside the nesting chamber of a wild platypus, and records the extraordinary sounds of the mother suckling her offspring. We watch as they grow from newborns to adulthood. Join renowned documentary makers David Parer and Elizabeth Parer-Cook (Dragons of Galapagos, Wolves of the Sea) on this fascinating journey from the rainforests of Queensland to the frozen mountains of Tasmania, as they reveal new insights into this mysterious creature.

After discovering a self help book written by his estranged father, a high school student begins to distance himself from his mother and his girlfriend in pursuit of his newly acquired ambitions.

A film created from the footage of the 2014 Mallane manslaughter case.

Three women embrace their household appliances. 1950s style advertising and pornography create an absurd equation between sex and selling.

A six year old boy brings home a piece of schoolwork that provokes his parents to question his sexual orientation, and their own, with disastrous and hilarious results.

On a sweltering summer’s day, two elderly friends talk about work, travel and dreams.

A crime journalist and his secret source are hunted by the Mafia, who are desperately trying to uncover the identity of the man who has betrayed them.

A woman in mourning is taken on a journey through her memories to find closure.

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.

A woman from Manilla moves to a NSW country town to marry a typical Australian man, we then experience culture shock from both sides.

Connor, secretly in love with his best friend Rach, has gotten her a pretty cool birthday present. Something that's sure to knock her off her feet. But, when things take a sharply peculiar turn, Connor begins to wonder whether he would have been better off just getting a gift voucher.

After watching Halloween for the first time, a little girl’s fear of serial killers spirals into a dark and twisted survival plan.

On June 21 2007, the Howard Federal Government launched an intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. It was one of the most dramatic policy shifts in the history of Aboriginal affairs. Relentless media attention focuses on ideological arguments for and against the Intervention, while the voices of those affected by the policy are rarely heard. For this film more than 40 Alice Springs town camp residents were interviewed in depth over the course of eight months to find out the answer to the question - is it working?

A collection of early Australian films about bushrangers, compiled by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive. Films are: [unknown] (1906), The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), The Story of the Kelly Gang (1910), Thunderbolt (1910), Trooper Campbell (1914), The Kelly Gang (1920), Robbery Under Arms (1920), When The Kellys Were Out (1923), and Trooper O'Brien (1928).

Mark has second thoughts about proposing to his girlfriend of six years, after a crisis strikes during an important dinner.

This is the story of the invention of penicillin and the scientists behind the work. The main character, Howard Florey, races against time to create his magic bullet that will ultimately save the lives of thousands of soldiers during the second world war and win him the Nobel prize. It is a story of intrigue, suspense and bitter rivalry, set mainly in Oxford, England during World War II.

A shy university student gets caught up in a robbery at an Asian grocery store as he attempts to ask out his crush.

In a small corner of the world a pointless opera occurs.

Full special from 2024.

A doctor's tentative romance with the hospital's Arabic interpreter is evolving into something deeper. But everything is not as it seems.

Claustrophobic drama sent in the summer of 1973 against the backdrop of day-to-day social and political turmoil including the sacking of the Whitlam government. Two people meet: the gap between their intellectual and emotional response widens as their relationship develops.

Grappling with relentless intrusive thoughts and Harm OCD, Jess faces a terrifying drive. As her anxiety mounts, Jess retreats to the safety of a quiet petrol station, where she meets a stranger whose kindness changes the course of her night.

Cabbie of the Year.