Shop for a film
History - Australian (9/11)
Australian social, political and cultural history, including Indigenous history, stories of Australians involved in both World Wars and in other events in Asia and the Pacific region, personal domestic stories through to studies of Australian political leaders.
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
![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
![SAMMY BUTCHER: Out of the Shadows [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/5632.jpg)
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
![SATELLITE DREAMING [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/10777.jpg)
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
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
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
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
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
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
![SOMETHING OF THE TIMES [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/8895.jpg)
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
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
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
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
![TAKEOVER [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7833.jpg)
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
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
![TALKING LANGUAGE with Ernie Dingo [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/10154.jpg)
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
![THREE HORSEMEN [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7834.jpg)
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
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
![TO GET THAT COUNTRY [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7349.jpg)
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