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Art & Artists (2/6)
Art and artists in Australia and internationally, including studies of the work of artists including Ainslie Roberts, John Perceval, Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, Yosl Bergner, Shen Jiawei, John Russell, and photographers Tracey Moffatt and Olive Cotton. Special emphasis on Indigenous art, its commercial exploitation, its history and the work of individual artists including Gordon Bennett, Albert Namatjira and Jimmy Pike.
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
DVORAK AND AMERICA
1999 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 56 min
On 26 September 1892 when the Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak, arrived in New York to direct the National Conservatory of Music of America, he was given the daunting task of creating a school of music for a young nation boundlessly confident in its resources, but still looking to Europe for a sense of identity. more
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
EFFACEMENT
1980 (G) 14 min
NOW DIGITALLY REMASTERED. EFFACEMENT shows a Japanese Noh maskmaker, Taniguchi Akiko, at work on her masks in her Tokyo studio. She carves the mask, paints it and moves it in the pace of an actor's movements on the traditional Noh stage. more
EMILY IN JAPAN - The Making of An Exhibition
2009 (PG) 82 min
Behind the scenes of the blockbuster exhibition of paintings by the Indigenous artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye which toured Japan attracting record crowds. more
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
FIGURES IN THE LANDSCAPE
1985 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 50 min
A superb film about the internationally acclaimed Australian painter, Arthur Boyd, arguably Australia's finest painter. A new upgraded 1080p file and DVD master of a great documentary classic. more
FIRST CITIZEN: ALBERT NAMATJIRA
1989 (G) 54 min
Albert Namatjira was the first Aboriginal artist to be recognised by white Australians. He was torn between two worlds simply because he had the wisdom to recognise both. Two cultures, two laws. The feting and fawning of the city glitterati, ultimately led to his tragic decline and death. more
FRAMED
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 55 min
FRAMED is about our fascination with faces. It's about portraits. But what is a portrait? Of course it's the famous painting on the gallery wall and the notorious candidate for the Archibald Prize. But isn't it also the cherished photograph you have in your wallet, at your place of work, by your bed? In FRAMED we... more
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
GOLDEN CORD, THE
1996 (G) 55 min
THE GOLDEN CORD looks beyond the fascinating detail of the refined technical skills required by the art of batik, to aspects of the vivid spiritual and social traditions of Java and Aboriginal Australia: two distinct but strangely parallel contemporary cultures resting on timeless foundations. more
![GOOD-BYE OLD MAN [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7348.jpg)
GOOD-BYE OLD MAN [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1977 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 66 min
A Tiwi Island Bereavement Ceremony. more
GOODBYE REVOLUTION
2008 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
This beautiful and moving portrait of Chinese artist, Shen Jiawei, is a 'labour of love' from director Esben Storm. Shen moved to Australia at the time of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Now, 20 years later, Shen is taking us back to China. A journey of rediscovery and reflection, a journey through which we get to know the... more
HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES: The Films of Lee Whitmore
2011 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 61 min
NED WETHERED (11 mins), ON A FULL MOON (17 mins), ADA (7 mins) and THE SAFE HOUSE (26 mins). EXTRA FEATURES: Interview (23 mins), The Making of ... (42 mins) Plus slideshow of storyboards. DVD also includes a 28-page DVD booklet - Hand-drawn Histories THE FILMS OF LEE WHITMORE: the animator talks about her... more
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
HIRED ASSASSINS
2003 (PG) 58 min
An incisive documentary about Australia's leading editorial cartoonists who grapple daily with the double-edged sword of humour and seriousness to reveal the heart of politics in Australia. more
HUNDREDTH ROOM, THE
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 18 min
THE HUNDREDTH ROOM follows the personal journey undertaken by the filmmaker in the twelve months following her partner Caroline's death. We enter into the landscape of grief to discover what death says about life. more
I WANT TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT WOMEN
2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 12 min
A queer, speculative, documentary love letter to Russian constructivist women. It asks what the revolutionary women artists of the 1920s said, what they did, and what they might have created had it not been for Stalin's suppression. A film by Karen Pearlman ASE. 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
KINGS OF BAXTER
2017 (M) 66 min
A rare insight into life behind bars for juvenile inmates in one of the country's largest juvenile justice centres: two actors from the Bell Shakespeare company engage with young offenders in an attempt to stage a performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth for their families and fellow inmates. more
LANGUAGE OF LIGHT, THE
2023 (M) 171 min
Intimate portraits of seven ground-breaking Australian photographers, each with a significant body of work and each with a different photographic style. more
LAST VIOLIN, THE
2023 (PG) 75 min
Master violin maker, Charalambos Vatiliotis, known as Harry, is 85 and has retired. When Romano, a violinist and friend of 48 years, persuades him to make one final violin, a heart-warming story unfolds. more
LAST WRIGHT, THE
2008 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
An award-winning film about the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the story of the last hotel he designed. In Mason City, Iowa, Wright was commissioned to design a city block encompassing a bank and hotel facing the city park. Soon scandal and tragedy ruined his career but the Park Inn Hotel still stands as one of his... more
LEMPAD OF BALI
1980 (G) 56 min
A re-release of an acclaimed documentary classic by John Darling - A film about the life and death of the 116-year-old Balinese Master-Artist. more
LIFE IS A VERY STRANGE THING (English language version)
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 80 min
Frédéric, a former high school rebel, ethnomusicologist, and multinational executive, returns from decades abroad, to a France that is both familiar and on edge. A quirky and moving portrait by outsiders, exploring what it is to be French in the 21st century. A delightful film by Les McLaren and Annie Stiven. more
LIFE IS A VERY STRANGE THING (French language version)
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 80 min
Frédéric, a former high school rebel, ethnomusicologist, and multinational executive, returns from decades abroad, to a France that is both familiar and on edge. A quirky and moving portrait by outsiders, exploring what it is to be French in the 21st century. more
LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS
2012 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 29 min
The remarkable life and work of Aboriginal artist Danny Eastwood and his contribution to the well-being of his community in western Sydney, and to Reconciliation and Australian culture at large. more
LIGHT YEARS
1991 (G) 47 min
NOW SUPERBLY RE-MASTERED FROM ORIGINAL FILM MATERIALS! A unique record of the life and work of eminent Australian photographer, Olive Cotton. more
LOOKING FOR LIGHT
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 83 min
Jane Bown (1925-2014) was one of the most celebrated of British portrait photographers, renowned for her highly individualistic portraits of the famous. Some of these portraits are now accepted as classics of the genre - Samuel Beckett, Queen Elizabeth, the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Margaret Thatcher and countless more. more
![MAKE IT RIGHT! [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/10115.jpg)
MAKE IT RIGHT! [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1988 (G) 21 min
MAKE IT RIGHT! is a unique record of the landmark 1988 Barunga Festival of Aboriginal Sport and Culture at which Prime Minister Bob Hawke made commitments (unfulfilled) to negotiate a treaty with Aboriginal people. more
MAKING A MARK
2018 (PG) 56 min
A chronicle of creative trailblazing - exploring one of the most personally challenging and financially tenuous of vocations, to live and work in the competitive world of the visual arts in Australia. A superb film about inspiration, aspiration and the hard facts of life. more
MEMORY TREE
2003 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
THE CONTROVERSIAL ART OF DAVID BOYD: MEMORY TREE has rare insights into the nature of enduring creativity and the power of the imagination. It tells of the passionate life journey of one of Australia's great living artists whose real stature has not always been recognised in the art world. more
MIRACLE OF THE LITTLE PRINCE, THE
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 90 min
The story of how communities are keeping endangered languages alive with the help of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince – from North Africa to Tibet, and the Arctic circle to Latin America. A feature documentary by Dutch filmmaker, Marjoleine Boonstra. more
MORE THAN A FISH KILL
2024 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 38 min
Two beloved rivers and more than 30 million dead fish bring artists, scientists and First Nations custodians together to turn ecological disasters into a journey of cultural healing. more
![MOURNING FOR MANGATOPI [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/9119.jpg)
MOURNING FOR MANGATOPI [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1974 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min
An elaborate Tiwi mourning ceremony, performed as an affirmation of traditional culture. more
MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING
2003 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 93 min
Was William Shakespeare truly the greatest English author, or does that honour really belong to Christopher Marlowe, a peer of the great bard who penned a number of popular plays during the late 1500s? This documentary plunges deep into the mystery surrounding the authorship of the plays and Marlowe's supposed murder. more
MUSIC CENTRAL
2023 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 27 min
MUSIC CENTRAL explores the power of music to create connection and healing. Filmed on the Central Coast of New South Wales, this documentary follows the stories of local Elder Uncle Kevin 'Gavi' Duncan, the staff and students at Woy Woy Public School, young singer-songwriter Ruby Archer and the Artistic Director of the... more
MY NAME IS GULPILIL
2021 (M) 101 min
"I'm an actor, I'm a dancer, I'm a singer and also, a painter. This film is about me. This is my story of my story." - David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu more
MY REMBETIKA BLUES (English version)
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 83 min
Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music born of exile and the streets. The film traces the roots of this music in the mass migration of people in the early twentieth century and in particular the journey of the filmmaker's own forebears from Smyrna in Turkey to Sydney, Australia. A universal story about love, life... more