History - Australian (8/11)

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

NIGHT PARROT STORIES

2016 (G) 89 min

A cinematic ode to a bird lost in the darkness: a wonderfully inventive and engaging exploration by filmmaker Rob Nugent of the science, mythology and rumours surrounding the elusive nocturnal bird, the Night Parrot, that supposedly disappeared In Australia at the end of the 19th Century. more

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NORTH OF CAPRICORN

2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 54 min

"Northern Australia is a profoundly important part of Australia. It's a third of Australia that's in the tropics. It the part of Australia least developed, it's very rich in resources, and its the part of Australia closest to our neighbours," Professor Henry Reynolds. more

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NYIRR-MARIE [from the CAAMA Collection]

2010 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 24 min

Evelyn Hall (Nyirr-Marie), a leader of her community in the campaign for land rights, returns to her country to say goodbye for the last time. more

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OCCUPATION: NATIVE

2017 (PG) 52 min

The Aboriginal story is often buried deep beneath the accepted 247-year Australian historical narrative. It's not that the Australian story is wrong, it's just that it's a wee bit one-sided. Aboriginal filmmaker Trisha Morton-Thomas, bites back at Australian history in this inspired satire. more

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OLD MAN AND THE INLAND SEA, THE [from the CAAMA Collection]

2005 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 20 min

Norman Hayes Jagamarra gives us a unique Aboriginal perspective on greed, alcohol and the importance of maintaining your pride and self-sufficiency through a working life. more

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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

ONCE MY MOTHER

2013 (PG) 75 min

Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz investigates the reasons why her Polish mother abandoned her in an orphanage as a child and uncovers the truth behind her mother's wartime escape from a Siberian gulag, leaving Sophia to confront her own capacity for forgiveness. more

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OPHIR

2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 97 min

Voiced entirely by the Indigenous people of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, Ophir observes the colonisation of the land and its people, who at the end of the 1980s were left with no choice but to revolt for their right to exist. more

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ORIGINAL MERMAID, THE

2003 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min

From crippled child to the star of the biggest theatres in the world, the story of Annette Kellerman is truly without peer. Along the way she changed the face of swimming, fashion and dance and helped forge a new identity for women. more

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OUR BOTANICAL BIOSPHERE

1990 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 240 min

This pioneering series of short documentaries, first released as UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES in 1990, is even more relevant today: there is now an ever-increasing urgency for us all to be informed about science, to liberate us from a dependence on politicians and corporations. more

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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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PARRA

2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min

IT'S NOT WHERE YOU'RE FROM, IT'S WHERE YOUR AT. Set in Parramatta, Western Sydney, this film illustrates the life of one of the largest shopping centres in the southern hemisphere. more

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PEACE PILGRIMS

2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 28 min

In September 2015, five peace activists penetrated the 'Joint Facility' Pine Gap, just outside Alice Springs to protest and lament victims of American drone strikes. They were arrested and faced 7 years jail. A documentary by John Hughes, based on Peace Crimes, Kieran Finnane (UQP 2020) more

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PIONEERS OF LOVE

2005 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 110 min

An epic story of Immigrant and Indigenous experiences in far north Queensland spanning across the 20th century. more

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PITJIRI: The Snake That Will Not Sink

1986 (G) 48 min

In 1936 on a remote outpost in the Northern Territory, nine Aboriginal Elders appeared before Ruth Heathcock, who they believed was a member of their tribe before the Dreaming. Fifty years later, Sister Ruth returns and describes the psychic phenomena that she experienced and how this changed her perception of the human... 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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POZIERES

2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 52 min

Between July and August, 1916, the small village of Pozieres in northern France became the centre of one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War. By the end of August the village had been destroyed. The battles to reclaim the territory for the French nation were to become legendary. more

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PUTUPARRI and the Rainmakers

2015 (M) 97 min

Against the backdrop of Australia's tangled colonial and Indigenous history, Putuparri and the Rainmakers explores one man's struggle to fulfill his destiny. 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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REDFERN STORY, THE

2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 57 min

In Redfern, in inner Sydney, a group of determined visionaries pioneered the National Black Theatre at a turbulent time for Indigenous politics in the 1970s. The Theatre left a lasting legacy on national politics, social welfare and the Australian arts scene. more

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RED MATILDAS

1984 (G) 50 min

Through the lives of three women, RED MATILDAS explores the social and political conditions in Australia during the Great Depression - conditions of massive unemployment, widespread malnutrition and growing militarism at home and abroad - that provoked many people to political activity. 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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RINGBALIN - BREAKING THE DROUGHT

2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 32 min

A powerful documentary about the healing of Australia's greatest river and its diverse peoples through ancient ceremony of culture and spirit. more

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ROBERT McFARLANE

2017 (PG) 27 min

See THE STILL POINT - PHOTOGRAPHY OF ROBERT McFARLANE more

ROCKING THE FOUNDATIONS

1985 (PG) 92 min

DIGITALLY RESTORED! A riveting documentary about the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation (BLF). Filmmaker Pat Fiske, herself one of the first women members of the BLF, develops a portrait of this once-powerful union through interviews with former union members and officials, archival film, and television news... more

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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

SAMMY BUTCHER: Out of the Shadows [from the CAAMA Collection]

2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 24 min

A portrait of Sammy Butcher [Warumpi Band], one of the leading figures in the contemporary Indigenous music scene. more

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SATELLITE DREAMING [from the CAAMA Collection]

1991 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

A film of considerable historic importance, this documentary narrates the emergence of Indigenous media in Australia, and discusses its role in preserving Indigenous languages and culture. more

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SAVE OUR SONS (S.O.S.)

1996 (PG) 54 min

A film about the Save Our Sons Movement of Victoria - a group of women formed in the sixties to protest against the Vietnam War. Energetic and informative, an extraordinary episode in the anti-conscription and anti-Vietnam War struggles of the 1960s. more

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SCRIBE, THE

2018 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 71 min

From deep within the engine room of politics comes this superb documentary on the "Donald Bradman" of speech-writers - Graham Freudenberg: a powerful journey into one of the great minds of politics who has written speeches for Labor leaders over many decades, including Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke. 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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SMUT HOUNDS - Censorship in the Sixties

2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 9 min

Seventy-seven seconds of celluloid that scandalised a government and transformed Australian cinema. more

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SNAKES AND LADDERS

1988 (PG) 59 min

Drawing on interviews and a striking selection of archival footage, this film reveals the expectations and achievements of women who have struggled to gain a tertiary education - and the reality of discrimination. The film employs the unusual device of a whimsical investigator, Sophia Whist, who pieces together the elements... more

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SOMETHING OF THE TIMES [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1985 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 41 min

The story of Aboriginal and white buffalo hunters in the remote wetlands of the Northern Territory in the 1930s. 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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STOLEN GENERATIONS

2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min

The removal of Aboriginal children in Australia was a deliberate government policy and forms part of the history of dispossession of the country's original inhabitants. Every Aboriginal family in Australia has directly or indirectly been affected and the effects have lasted over generations. Many have called this genocide. more

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SYDNEY AT WAR

2005 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

At midnight on Sun May 31, 1942, three Japanese midget submarines broke through Sydney Harbour's defences and launched a surprise attack on an ill-prepared city. During that night of confusion and violence, 21 Australian and 6 Japanese service personnel lost their lives. Sydney At War recounts the events of that fateful... more

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TAKEOVER [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1979 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 87 min

The story of an Aboriginal community under threat from a distant bureaucracy. A film by David and Judith MacDougall. DIGITALLY RE-MASTERED FROM ORIGINAL FILM MATERIALS! more

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TALKING BROKEN

1991 (G) 76 min

'Broken' is the creole spoken by the Torres Strait Islanders in far north Australia. Although they appear to keep up with 'the system', the hidden language of the authorities will always remain a mystery. With humour and intelligence, various Islanders talk openly about subjects as wide-ranging as independence, culture,... more

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TALKING LANGUAGE with Ernie Dingo [from the CAAMA Collection]

2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 132 min

There are around 250 languages with 600 dialects spoken on this land. Today it is estimated around 30 of those languages are still strong and spoken daily, while over a hundred are critically endangered. more

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THREE HORSEMEN [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1982 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 51 min

Three generations of Aboriginal stockmen on a cattle station in far north Queensland. more

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TIME TO DRAW THE LINE

2016 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

East Timor was born as a new nation in 2002 after 25 years of turmoil and war. Australia's peace-keeping force, INTERFET, helped with the peaceful transition to nationhood. Now, a darker story of Australia's relationship with this new nation is emerging. more

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TO GET THAT COUNTRY [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1977 (G) 66 min

A record of an historic event: the inaugural meeting of the Northern Land Council, representing traditional owners of the northern part of the Northern Territory. more

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TOMBSTONE OPENING, THE

2012 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 29 min

Releasing the spirit of Ephraim Bani, a great cultural custodian, in Torres Strait's unique ritual. more

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TOO MANY CAPTAIN COOKS

1988 (G) 18 min

In this film, Paddy Wainburranga of the Rembarrnga tribe from the centre of Arnhem Land in Northern Australia relates and paints the Rembarrnga history of Captain Cook. more

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TOTEM & ORE

2019 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 98 min

In Australia, British atomic bomb testing ran from 1953 to 1963 at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia. Indigenous communities had to live with the impact of these tests – testing that infected many with radioactive fallout. more

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TRIAL, THE

2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

In February 2008 twelve Muslim men went on trial in Melbourne on terrorism charges. The trial ran for nine months, heard hundreds of hours of secretly taped conversations and presented 66,000 pages of evidence. THE TRIAL takes us inside one of the biggest court cases in Australia's history. more

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TROBRIAND CRICKET

1979 (G) 52 min

"Trobriand cricket" refers to a unique version of the ball-and-bat sport cricket played by the Trobriand Islanders. They were first exposed to the game by Christian missionaries, who thought the game would discourage war among the natives. However, the game was quickly adapted to Trobriand culture by expanding the number... 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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TWO HOMELANDS

2024 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

Fifty years after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, TWO HOMELANDS is both a commemoration of war and a celebration of community as six senior Australian Greek Cypriots - aged 70 to 102 - give emotional eyewitness accounts of the cost of war and their migration to Australia. more

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UNDERCURRENTS: meditations on power

2023 (M) 19 min

A poetic essay documentary by Margot Nash, about the undercurrents of history playing out in the present: a 'song' for the dark times about repression and resistance. more

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VOTE YES FOR ABORIGINES - The Story of the 1967 Referendum

2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min

A documentary about the 1967 Referendum and the fight for citizenship rights for Aborigines. It marks the 40th anniversary of the occasion, celebrating its historical significance and contemporary relevance. more

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VOYAGE OF BOUNTY'S CHILD, THE

1983 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 90 min

The year is 1789. In the central Pacific Ocean the crew of Her Majesty's Ship Bounty mutinied against their captain, William Bligh, and cast him adrift with 18 other men in an open boat, 150 kilometres from Tonga. This epic voyage is re-created in this remarkable documentary classic from 1983. more

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WAITING FOR HARRY [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1980 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 56 min

Tensions behind the scenes of a ritual event in central Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. more

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WE DON'T NEED A MAP

2017 (M) 85 min

A bold and provocative essay film by Warwick Thornton about the deeply spiritual meaning of the Southern Cross constellation for Aboriginal people. The film challenges us to consider the place of the Southern Cross in the psyche of all Australians. WINNER! Digital History Prize, NSW Premier's History Awards, 2018. more

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WHEN THE SNAKE BITES THE SUN

1985 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 57 min

A film by Michael Edols. Available on DVD and Vimeo-on-Demand as part of the ASPECTS OF A LIFE collection. more

WHERE THE WATER STARTS

2021 (PG) 71 min

After seeing the destruction of the fragile alpine ecology of Australia's Snowy Mountains first-hand, Richard Swain decides to speak out. A powerful new film by Amanda King and Fabio Cavadini. more

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WHISPERING IN OUR HEARTS

2002 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min

The story of the 1916 massacre of Aboriginal people at Mowla Bluff, Western Australia, told in interviews with surviving Nyikina, Mangala and Karajarri peoples, as well as through dramatised re-enactments of the testimonials of Aboriginal witnesses. more

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WHITEYS LIKE US

1999 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min

A group of 15 white strangers come together to participate in an eight-week Aboriginal reconciliation circle. The film follows the impact the process has on the participants' lives as they grapple with these difficult and complex issues. more

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WHY ME?

2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 56 min

STORIES FROM THE STOLEN GENERATIONS. WHY ME? explores the human costs of a government policy which removed children from their families and country. more

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WILD

1993 (G) 54 min

An essay film about the relationship between contemporary Australia and the landscapes of the past, present and future. WILD takes Eric Rolls' writings as its starting point and seeks ways to extend and adapt the written ideas into a new, cinematic evocation of the forest. more

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WILLABERTA JACK [from the CAAMA Collection]

2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min

He survived an attempted killing. He survived an unjust legal system. But can he survive white "payback"? A true story from the Northern Territory, 1929, which inspired the feature film, SWEET COUNTRY. more

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WINNING WORLD WAR I

2008 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 92 min

A moving adaptation of the landmark book, The Western Front Diaries, written by historian Dr Jonathan King to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the end of World War I. Dr King presents this little-known story of the role of the tough-fighting Australians in the winning of World War I. more

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WOLF IN AUSTRALIAN ART, THE

2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 42 min

Danila Vassilieff was a pivotal figure in the emergence of Modernism in Australian art. He was also a Russian - a bold cossack from South Russia, and a defender of the czar. His fascinating life and profound humanity are the subject of this compelling and wide-ranging documentary. more

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WOMEN OF THE SUN

1981 (PG) 240 min

Comprising of four stand-alone one-hour episodes, this ground-breaking series from 1982 depicts events in the lives of four Aboriginal women over more than 150 years. more

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YELLOW FELLA [from the CAAMA Collection]

2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 25 min

A portrait of the late Balang Tom E. Lewis who as a young man in 1978 was chosen by director Fred Schepisi to star in THE CHANT OF JIMMY BLACKSMITH. The life of the character he played was hauntingly close to his own – a restless young man of mixed heritage, struggling between two cultures to find his own identity. more

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YORKY BILLY [from the AIATSIS Collection]

1980 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 17 min

A portrait of a disappearing way of life in the Northern Territory outback. more

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