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Recent Releases (2/7)
Recent additions to Ronin's blue ribbon collection of films from Australia and overseas, specialising in high quality independently produced social documentaries and selected feature films.
BY COMPASS AND QURAN
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min
Retracing the steps of the Afghan cameleers, exploring their amazing lives in the Australian outback, and the discrimination and alienation that many endured in a white Australia. more
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BYSTANDER STORY, THE
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 30 min
Fusing studio re-enactments, interviews, archival, bodycam and CCTV footage to tell a radically new story about psychology's bystander experiments, The Bystander Story investigates how strangers come together to help strangers – culminating with the bystanders who tried to prevent the killing of George Floyd. more
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CARNIVAL, THE
2023 (MA) 85 min
The Bells have been hauling their convoy of carnival rides and workers across Australia for six generations. Now, facing shutdowns and bushfires, and a dwindling economy – the family battles to keep their show, and ultimately their legacy, alive. more
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CHILD'S EYE, THE
2018 (G) 147 min
AVAILABLE ONLY ON DVD! Through a series of workshops across India, documentary filmmaker David MacDougall sought to empower young filmmakers to engage directly with the world around them, using cameras to interrogate and explore what they saw, from their own unique child's perspective. more
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CLOSE TO THE BONE
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 28 min
In this remarkable film, First Nations people and European settler descendants come together to confront legacies of violence from Australia's pastoral frontier. Can the scars of past atrocities be reconciled and healed through the act of truth-telling? more
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COMMON PURPOSE, A
2011 (PG) 75 min
Twenty-five people are convicted of the murder of one man, fourteen are sentenced to hang, one lawyer is assassinated and the other goes into exile. A Common Purpose is the dramatic story behind a notorious murder trial that marks South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. more
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COOLBAROO CLUB, THE
1996 (G) 55 min
A portrait of the Coolbaroo Club, an Aboriginal-run dance club which operated in Perth from 1946 - 1960. The film is delivered via the memories of those involved, stills, archive and extensive dramatisation. An award-winning documentary on post-war race relations in Australia. more
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CORN ISLAND
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 100 min
A compelling feature film from the Republic of Georgia: a timeless story of struggle against the elements by an elderly peasant and his granddaughter. "An astonishing feat of cinema" (Variety). more
CREATING A MONSTER
2017 (PG) 20 min
A documentary by Gena Lida Riess exploring the ethics of reality television, how it is constructed and consumed, and the psychological impact that it has on participants. more
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DAVID HIRSCHFELDER: Drawing the audience in - making the music for SHINE
2016 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 28 min
David Hirschfelder was the composer of original music, and music arranger, for the Oscar-winning feature film SHINE (1996). In this documentary, made for the 20th anniversary of the release of the feature, Hirschfelder recalls the complex process of selecting, arranging and recording the music for the film. more
DEATH IN THE CITY
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 72 min
An intimate portrayal of the sacred city of Varanasi, situated on the holy Ganges, 'the river of life'. The city is the revered destination for death for Hindus since time immemorial, with legendary funeral pyres burning non-stop for over three millennia on the river bank. more
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DIFFICULT PLEASURE - a film about Brett Whitely
1990 (M) 51 min
Difficult Pleasure is a revealing portrait of one of Australia's finest painters - the only full-length documentary made about Brett Whiteley. Filmed in 1989, the film explores Whiteley's art and life and is richly illustrated with some of his finest paintings. more
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DOGS OF DEMOCRACY
2016 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 58 min
WINNER! Spirit of Activism Award, Nevada Women's Film Festival, March 2017. WINNER! Best Documentary Feature, 2017 Imagine This: Women's International Film Festival, Brooklyn, New York! A documentary about the stray dogs of Athens and the people who take care of them. In the on-going financial crises of the 2010s,... more
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DROVER'S BOY, THE
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 11 min
This 'hybrid' blend of music, documentary and drama is set in the 1920s in outback Australia, and evokes a time when it was illegal for white Australians and Aboriginal people to marry. Based on a ballad by Ted Egan, the film pays tribute to the role of Aboriginal women in the pastoral history of frontier Australia. more
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EDITOR'S ANTHOLOGY, AN
2016-2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 32 min
An anthology of three short films by Karen Pearlman ASE, about women and cinema: Woman with an editing bench, After the facts and I want to make a film about women. more
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END OF THE RAINBOW
2007 (M) 83 min
From filmmaker Rob Nugent, an elegiac portrait of the changes brought by the arrival of an industrial gold mine in a remote region of West Africa, and a testament to the universal human desire for a better life. more
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ESCHER: JOURNEY INTO INFINITY
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 80 min
A portrait of one of the most influential and inspiring artists of the 20th century, M.C. Escher. Narrated by Stephen Fry, in Escher's own words. A superb film by highly regarded Dutch filmmaker, Robin Lutz. more
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ETCHED IN BONE
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 73 min
When the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC agrees to repatriate stolen human bones from northern Australia, an Aboriginal elder creates a ceremony that restores his ancestors' spirits to their homeland. more
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EVER THE LAND
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 93 min
EVER THE LAND explores the bond between people and their land through the landmark design and construction of a unique "Living Building" by one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most passionately independent Maori tribes, Ngai Tuhoe. more
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EXILE AND THE KINGDOM
1993 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 110 min
The experiences of a community of Aboriginal people from pre-colonial times to the 1990s. The re-release of the award-winning feature documentary from 1993, made with the YINDJIBARNDI, NGARLUMA, BANYJIMA and GURRAMA people of Roebourne, Western Australia. more
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FREEDOM STORIES
2015 (PG) 99 min
Explores the achievements of former 'boat people' who arrived from the Middle-East around the watershed year of 2001. Locked in remote detention centres and then placed on temporary protection visas, their limbo lasted for years. Now Australian citizens, they are building secure lives and contributing to their new country. more
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FROM UNDER THE RUBBLE
2018 (M) 76 min
The Samouni family story: a powerful civilian perspective on the violent clash between Palestinians and Israeli armed forces in Gaza. Australian filmmaker Anne Tsoulis has created an intimate and unflinching film about an appalling crisis. more
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GENOCIDE IN THE WILDFLOWER STATE
2024 (M) 58 min
An intensively researched documentary which describes a violent, state-run system of eugenics, racial absorption, and social assimilation in 20th century Western Australia. more
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GEOFF DIXON - PORTRAITS OF US
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 82 min
An intimate portrait of the life and work of iconoclastic New Zealand artist Geoff Dixon. more
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GEOFFREY RUSH: The Imp, the Spirit, the Hero - playing David Helfgott in SHINE
2016 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 28 min
A delightful short film, made for the 20th anniversary of the release of SHINE. Prior to the production of SHINE in 1996, Geoffrey Rush was a renowned theatre actor in Australia but had had little involvement in film. SHINE transformed his career, especially when he won the Oscar for Best Actor. more
GREAT STRIKE 1917, THE
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 69 min
To this day, the Great Strike of 1917 is still Australia's largest industrial upheaval. The story of the Strike has long been dormant in archives, and is now re-told with original film footage from the era. OFFICIAL SELECTION! Antenna Documentary Film Festival. FINALIST! ATOM AWARDS, Documentary (History). more
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HABITS OF NEW NORCIA, THE
2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min
Re-release of a remarkable documentary from 2000: the story of the Benedictine Aboriginal Mission at New Norcia, in Western Australia. Now a popular tourist destination north of Perth, the Mission holds harsh memories for the former Aboriginal "inmates" who were placed there during the 1920s through to the 1960s. more
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HANDLING THE HEART
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 27 min
An exploration of patient experiences following major heart surgery - how to understand them and live with them: a story of existential crises and transformative experiences, told by four ex-patients. Adapted from the feature-length documentary, PUMPHEAD. more
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HANGING AUSTRALIA
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 49 min
A major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, "Australia" was the largest collection of art ever to represent this country overseas. more
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HILLMEN, THE - a Soccer Fable
1996 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 56 min
A story about cross-cultural relationships, the generation gap and what it's like to lose. ... A film by Steve Thomas. WINNER! BEST TV DOCUMENTARY in the AFI Awards,1996. more
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HISTORY BITES BACK
2021 (MA) 55 min
After the bold and brilliant Occupation: Native, Aboriginal filmmaker Trisha Morton-Thomas teams up again with Comedy Director-Writer, Craig Anderson to launch a rocket into 250 years of taboos, prejudice and ignorance. History Bites Back uses devastating satire to unpack the negative social bias of the history shared... more
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HOLDING TIGHTLY - Custom and Healing in Timor-Leste
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 30 min
Holding Tightly observes seven approaches to healing in remote, rural and urban parts of the Baucau municipality in Timor-Leste, spanning contexts and experiences from the armed resistance era to the independence period. A film by Lisa Palmer and Susanna Barnes. more
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HOMELAND STORY
2019 (M) 84 min
An intimate portrait of Donydji, an Indigenous Homeland community in north-east Arnhem Land. The film charts their struggle from the 1960s to the present day to overcome the corrosive effects of government policy and pressure from mining interests, and to remain on their land. more
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HOPE ROAD
2017 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 103 min
Filmed over a 5-year period, HOPE ROAD is a film by Tom Zubrycki which follows an ambitious project undertaken by a Sudanese refugee in Australia, Zacharia Machiek, to build a much-needed school back in his home village, now part of the new nation of South Sudan. But life disrupts his best-laid plans ... more
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HOW THE WEST WAS LOST
1987 (G) 72 min
NOW RESTORED FROM ORIGINAL FILM NEGATIVES! The story of the 1946 Aboriginal Pastoral Workers' Strike that has never officially ended. An event more important than the Eureka Stockade but never recorded in written histories - the passive resistance by 800 Aboriginal station workers against the appalling living and working... more
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IMAGINARY BORDER
2017 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 105 min
A challenging and compassionate reflection on race relations in Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. A film by Iranian-born Austrian filmmaker, Alireza Ghanie. more
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IN THEIR NAME
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 27 min
Decades after Latvian Jewish women and children were humiliated and killed by Nazi troops and their Latvian collaborators in 1941, their descendants continue to be haunted by the massacre. A film by Peter Hegedus. more
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JAPARTA - a Journey to the Gurindji Way
2025 (G) 99 min
The story of a Japanese scholar, Minoru Hokari, who, before his death in 2004 at the age of 32, achieved work which today commands an ever-widening audience. It is a story of cross-cultural understanding, how Gurindji Elders in the Northern Territory tasked Minoru to relay stories from their culture to a wider world. A... more
JOHN FARROW: HOLLYWOOD'S MAN IN THE SHADOWS
2021 (PG) 96 min
This award-winning documentary is the first ever made about one of Hollywood's most prolific yet forgotten filmmakers, John Villiers Farrow (1904-1963). Part mystery, part biography, part film noir, the documentary follows the stranger-than-fiction story of this Australian-born, Oscar-winning filmmaker. more
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