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Art & Artists (3/6)
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.
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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![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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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![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
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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
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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
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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
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MY REMBETIKA BLUES (Greek 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
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![NED WETHERED [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]](/images/small/8540.jpg)
NED WETHERED [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]
1984 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 11 min
The first of Lee Whitmore's personal animations, recording her memory of her childhood and a visitor who often called on her family. more
NEON
2015 (PG) 84 min
Lawrence Johnston's NEON is a brightly coloured journey through the American dream, exploring how neon light became a beacon for the hopes of a country: a delightful spectacle of colour and light, music and history, design and cultural heritage. more
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NICE COLOURED GIRLS
1987 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 17 min
NOW DIGITALLY RE-MASTERED! This stylistically daring film audaciously explores the history of exploitation between white men and Aboriginal women, juxtaposing the 'first encounter' between colonisers and native women with the attempts of modern urban Aboriginal women to reverse their fortunes. more
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NIGHT CRIES
1990 (G) 17 min
DIGITALLY REMASTERED! NIGHT CRIES – a story of a white woman and her adopted Aboriginal daughter, told with vibrantly coloured landscapes and a richly constructed soundscape. The film is in part a response by visual artist Tracey Moffatt to Charles Chauvel's celebrated feature film, JEDDA (1955). more
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OCHRE AND INK
2011 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 27 min
OCHRE AND INK tells the extraordinary story of artist Zhou Xiaoping and his inspiring 23 year collaboration with Indigenous artists in the Maningrida area in the heart of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. A film by James Bradley, with co-producer Rachel Clements. more
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![ON A FULL MOON [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]](/images/small/8541.jpg)
ON A FULL MOON [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]
1997 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 17 min
Contemplative memories of childhood and family by animator Lee Whitmore, lovingly animated frame by frame by pencil and pastel on paper. more
PAINTING THE TOWN
1986 (G) 59 min
PAINTING THE TOWN is a film about art and artists, culture and politics. Through the story of Yosl Bergner, the film reveals a community of Australian painters who sought to create an art that would reflect the great social upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s. more
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PATOU: in Black and White
2022 (M) 55 min
With a career that spans over four decades and across the globe, Jamaican singer Pat Powell ("Patou") is one of Australia's most accomplished yet hidden vocal talents. A award-winning film by Fiona Cochrane. more
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PETYARRE and ATNANGKERE (Our Cave) (From the CAAMA Collection)
2016-7 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 40 min
Two related short documentaries by Viviana Petyarre, featuring artist Gloria Petyarre and her family's search for a cave to which they are culturally connected. For millennia, the Atnangkere Cave has been a Dreaming centrepiece for the Alyawarre people of Atneltye (Boundary Bore), Utopia, north of Alice Springs in central... more
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PHOTO WALLAHS
1991 (G) 60 min
Renowned ethnographic filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall explore the many meanings of photography in this profound and penetrating documentary. The film focuses on the photographers of Mussoorie, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills of northern India whose fame has attracted tourists since the 19th century. more
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PICTURING HOME
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min
After twenty years of homelessness one woman finds empowerment by sharing her journey through the lens of a camera. A powerful film by Annette Cohen, exploring links between mental health concerns and homelessness. more
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POLES APART: The Blue Poles Controversy
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
POLES APART places the acquisition by the Whitlam government of Jackson Pollock's 'Blue Poles' in all the turbulence of its social and political context. more
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PORTRAITS OF US
2022 (PG) 82 min
An intimate portrait of the life and work of iconoclastic New Zealand artist Geoff Dixon. See GEOFF DIXON - PORTRAITS OF US: more
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QUEST OF JIMMY PIKE, THE
1989 (G) 51 min
Jimmy Pike lives an extraordinary and idyllic life hunting and painting in a harsh and primitive environment in the Great Sandy Desert. He first learnt to paint whilst in prison serving a life sentence for murder. As a young boy, he had come out of the Great Sandy Desert and saw white men for the first time. Now he wants... more
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RIDDLE OF THE BRADSHAWS, THE
2002 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 53 min
This story of the Bradshaw rock paintings or Gwion Gwion as they are known to the Aboriginal traditional owners, unfolds in the vast and beautiful Kimberley region of Australia's far north west. more
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![SAFE HOUSE, THE [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]](/images/small/8542.jpg)
SAFE HOUSE, THE [from HAND-DRAWN HISTORIES]
2006 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min
Lee Whitmore's careful, loving recreation of a quiet suburban street in Sydney in the 1950s and the moment when larger issues intruded in the form of the Petrovs, ASIO and the newspapers. more
SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN
2018 (M) 99 min
In this beautifully crafted and moving memoir, Margarethe von Trotta recalls the inspiration she found in the work of Ingmar Bergman: his films triggered her decision to become a director and guided many of her creative decisions over her long career. more
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SERPENT AND THE CROSS, THE
1991 (G) 55 min
In several outback Australian communities Aboriginal artists are consciously seeking an expression that builds bridges between Aboriginal spirituality (the Dreaming) and the Christian religion of their invaders. A look at these artists' thinking and dreaming which provides a rich, privileged look at the artwork, beautifully... more
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SEX, DRUGS AND STRING QUARTETS
2003 (M) 27 min
The Landau String Quartet comes together to rehearse. Each player has travelled a very different path to become a musician. In this dramatised documentary, the musicians reveal the story of that journey. more
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SHADOW PANIC
1989/2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 25 min
The feminist classic from 1989, now restored from original 16mm film materials. An innovative film by Margot Nash (director of VACANT POSSESSION and THE SILENCES) based on "the idea of structuring a film via the female gaze". more
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SIGNED, THEO SCHOON
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 100 min
A superb portrait of the Dutch émigré artist, Theo Schoon (1915 – 1985), raised in the East, trained in the West, and replanted in the South. He rocked the New Zealand cultural world and built a strong liaison with Māori communities and the landscape. more
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SKIN OF OTHERS, THE
2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 91 min
A story of modern Australia told through the extraordinary life of Aboriginal WW1 soldier Douglas Grant (c.1885-1951), an intellectual, a journalist, a soldier and a bagpipe player with a fine Scottish accent. Featuring the acclaimed Indigenous actor Balang Tom E. Lewis in his final performance (as Douglas Grant) and guest... more
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SOHRAB AND RUSTUM
2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 14 min
WINNER! BEST ANIMATION, SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL! An animated film by Lee Whitmore about a charismatic teacher who stirs the imaginations of the teenage girls in her classroom. Inspired by the epic poem by Matthew Arnold. more
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![SONS OF NAMATJIRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/9051.jpg)
SONS OF NAMATJIRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1975 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 47 min
A group of celebrated Aboriginal artists and their relationship with the outside world. more
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STILL POINT, THE - Photography of Robert McFarlane
2017 (PG) 27 min
The Still Point explores the life's work of one of Australia's most respected and pioneering documentary photographers: for five decades, Robert McFarlane has put a mirror up to the changing face of Australia. more
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TENTMAKERS OF CAIRO, THE
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 93 min
Spanning three turbulent years in Egyptian life, from the 2011 revolution to the 2014 election of Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, this intimate documentary observes these events through the eyes of artisan tentmakers in a back street in Cairo. more
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THESE HEATHEN DREAMS: Journey of a Cultural Bolshevik - Christopher Barnett
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min
Once described by the press as "one of the most controversial figures on the Australian art scene", avant-garde poet and playwright Christopher Barnett achieved a level of notoriety in the Melbourne underground theatre scene during the 70s and 80s, before self-exiling to France. more
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TRAVELS ON MY DONKEY
2024 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 32 min
In this hand-drawn animated film by Lee Whitmore, the filmmaker travels back in time on her donkey to meet her great-great-uncle, John Reed Hill, in Egypt in 1837. She joins him on an expedition to explore the pyramids of Gizeh. For Lee the journey is the adventure of a lifetime. more
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TUPAIA'S ENDEAVOUR
2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 119 min
A first contact story, told from a Pacific point of view. Tupaia was a Polynesian high-priest, star-navigator, and artist who joined Cook's Endeavour expedition in Tahiti in 1769 as a navigator, and had a profound impact on Cook's journey and survival. This film cements Tupaia's role as a central figure in Pacific history. more
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TWELVE CANOES
2008 (PG) 66 min
In the wake of the international success of TEN CANOES, Rolf de Heer has collaborated again with the Ramingining community of north Arnhem Land in making this series of twelve short documentaries that together paint a visual and audio portrait of the people, history, culture and place of the Yolngu people. more
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UP IN THE SKY
1999 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min
A funny, honest and revealing look into the life and work of photographic artist and filmmaker Tracey Moffatt, whose work's were exhibited at the prestigious gallery Dia Centre for the Arts in New York City. more
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![WALKING DANCING BELONGING [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/3326.jpg)
WALKING DANCING BELONGING [from the CAAMA Collection]
2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 22 min
Three women from the Kununurra area of Western Australia share their art and their experience of being "in country". more
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WANDERING SOULS
2019 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 75 min
Wandering Souls follows the mounting of a new stage production, Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia, to honour the nearly 2 million Cambodians who died during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. more
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WHAT I WROTE - Andrew Bovell
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 111 min
Andrew Bovell talks about his use of language, story and form, his re-writing of the plays, the rehearsal process and his collaboration with other writers, actors and artists. more
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WHAT I WROTE - David Williamson
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 119 min
David Williamson talks about a lifetime of writing, the changing nature of Australian theatre and the rehearsal process. more
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WHAT I WROTE - Debra Oswald
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 115 min
Oswald talks about the stories behind the plays, her stagecraft and her passion for notebooks. more
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WHAT I WROTE - Hannie Rayson
2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 60 min
Hannie Rayson engages with the national conversation and rehearses the big debates of our time. She uses family as a platform to discuss these issues. Hotel Sorrento, Inheritance, Life After George and the provocative Two Brothers make up her most influential works. She talks freely about her influences, her working methods... more
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WHAT I WROTE - Joanna Murray-Smith
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 125 min
Joanna Murray-Smith talks about writing first drafts, her childhood influences, her overseas productions and her working relationship with directors. more
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