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History - Australian (2/11)
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.
BLACKBIRD
2016 (PG) 13 min
Blackbird is a short narrative drama which sheds light on a little known part of history - Australia's notorious "blackbirding" era when some 60,000 Pacific Islanders were brought to Australia, often by force and kidnapping, between 1863 and 1904 to work on sugar cane farms of Queensland. more
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BLACK MAGIC
1988 (G) 55 min
It is through the medium of sport that Aboriginal people have best been able to express themselves to white Australia. Australia's greatest Aboriginal footballers talk about the sources of their motivation, about their family experiences and their roots. more
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BLACK MAN'S HOUSES
1992 (G) 58 min
This documentary tells the story of black survival in Tasmania amidst the continuing suppression of history and culture. In doing so, it challenges skin-deep assumptions about Aboriginality today. more
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BLOOD ON THE COAL
2015 (PG) 103 min
Stories from the Queensland coalfields over the last 150 years, as told by mineworkers and their families: a rare and valuable contribution to the history of both Australian labour and the nation's mining industry. more
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BLOWN AWAY
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 61 min
A powerful examination of the myths and facts of Cyclone Tracy, one of Australia's worst natural disasters which devastated the city of Darwin on Christmas Eve, 1974. The film especially explores previously unrecorded Indigenous responses to the crisis. more
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![BOOMERANG TODAY (KARLI JALANGU) [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/2890.jpg)
BOOMERANG TODAY (KARLI JALANGU) [from the CAAMA Collection]
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 22 min
Re-living ancient traditions in the modern world. A film by David Tranter and Allan Collins. more
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BORDER POLITICS
2018 (PG) 90 min
In this film, leading Human Rights barrister, Julian Burnside AO, deconstructs harsh asylum seeker policies around the world, arguing that failure in political leadership is compromising human rights and destroying democratic principles in the West. more
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BORN TO SHOP
1991 (G) 53 min
Whether you love shopping or hate it, whether your favourite shop is David Jones, the local bookshop, an open-air market or a hardware store, BORN TO SHOP will make you think about an ordinary activity in a new way. This film does not induce guilt! more
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BRAN NUE DAE
1991 (PG) 55 min
This documentary traces the development and production of the successful stage musical, Bran Nue Dae. The writer of the play, Jimmy Chi, talks about how his experiences and education led to his writing of the semi-autobiographical musical. Selections from the musical are intercut with interviews and historical footage. more
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BREAD AND DRIPPING
1981 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 17 min
Restored from original film materials: a classic documentary from 1981, telling women's stories of the Great Depression in the 1930s in Australia. more
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BREATHING LIFE INTO BOODJA
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 48 min
A galvanising portrayal of large-scale environmental achievements being made by community groups, Aboriginal communities and rangers, conservation landholders, farmers and scientists, as they work together to restore and heal land around the Porongurup and Stirling Ranges in south-western Australia. more
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BRIDE FLIGHTS, THE (English version)
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 58 min
The one-way ticket from Spain that changed Australian migration: about 700 Spanish women arrived in Australia during the early 1960s, supported by an informal agreement between the regime of Francisco Franco (1939-1975) and the Australian Government of that time. more
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BRIDE FLIGHTS, THE (Spanish version)
2022 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G)
The one-way ticket from Spain that changed Australian migration: about 700 Spanish women arrived in Australia during the early 1960s, supported by an informal agreement between the regime of Francisco Franco (1939-1975) and the Australian Government of that time. more
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BUFFALO LEGENDS
1997 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
Bill Dempsey MBE, himself a football legend, narrates this story of a group of men who knocked down the barriers of racism on the sporting field. On the way they established a way of life based on tolerance, respect and an ethic of making your own fun whatever obstacles are placed along the path. more
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BURNSIDE CONVERSATIONS, THE
2019 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 115 min
16 conversations, 1 topic: Human rights. In dynamic conversations with human rights barrister, Julian Burnside QC, key global thinkers reveal personal perspectives on current threats to human rights in the West, expanding on ideas raised in the film BORDER POLITICS (also available from Ronin Films). more
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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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![CAMELS & THE PITJANTJARA [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/9706.jpg)
CAMELS & THE PITJANTJARA [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1969 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 45 min
A classic documentary from 1969 which records the Pitjantjara people's use of feral camels in central Australia, capturing and taming them, and using them as pack animals. more
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CAMERA NATURA
1985 (G) 32 min
How has cinema shaped our relationship to the Australian landscape? What vision of the natural world and our place in it have filmmakers created? From Walkabout to Sunday Too Far Away to Mad Max, the camera moves restlessly across the landscape, creating a vision of a country more hostile than grand. 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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![CASS - NO SAUCEPAN DIVER [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/10899.jpg)
CASS - NO SAUCEPAN DIVER [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1982 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 12 min
Cass is a part-Aboriginal, part-Malay, part-Scottish man who used to work as a diver in the pearling industry in Broome, Western Australia. A film by Wayne Barker, his grandson. more
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CHIFLEYS OF BUSBY STREET, THE
2008 (G) 72 min
The Chifleys of Busby Street is an eloquent portrait of Australia's best-loved Prime Minister Ben Chifley, his wife Elizabeth, and their cherished spirit kept alive in Bathurst for the five decades since his death. Friends and colleagues share anecdotes and memories of the Chifleys in this charming documentary. 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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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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CRACKS IN THE MASK
1997 (G) 56 min
A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign... more
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![CROOKHAT AND THE KULUNADA [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/4585.jpg)
CROOKHAT AND THE KULUNADA [from the CAAMA Collection]
2010 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 23 min
Stories of the water serpent, Kulunada, which inhabits a permanent waterhole in the arid desert country of central Australia. more
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DELINQUENT ANGEL
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 48 min
A documentary about the famous Australian master painter, the late John Perceval. Tender and beautiful moments in the film reveal details about John's life, his loves and his relationships - with his minder/business manager, and other internationally renowned painters like Joy Hester, Sir Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd. 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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DON'T CALL ME GIRLIE
1985 (G) 69 min
From the birth of the cinema to World War II, DON'T CALL ME GIRLIE tells the untold story of Australia's movie heroines, on and off the screen. Discover the roles our women filmmakers really played - on screen as stars, behind the cameras, as producers, writers, directors and publicists. more
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DRIVEN TO DIFFRACTION
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 55 min
The remarkable story of William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg, two shy men who joined the ranks of the most important scientists of the twentieth century. "Ideally suited to whet the scientific appetites of teenagers" - Dr Michael Kindler, Principal, Stromlo High School, ACT 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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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
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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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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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FANTOME ISLAND
2011 (PG) 82 min
The fascinating and moving tale of Joe Eggmolesse, who in 1945 was removed from his family and confined to an Indigenous leper colony on an island off the North Queensland coast. He was seven years old. more
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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
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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
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FIRST FAGIN, THE
2012 (PG) 87 min
From New York to Hobart, and from the darkest jails and prison ships of England to the penal colony of Port Arthur, THE FIRST FAGIN brings to life the passionate love and dramatic adventures of Ikey Solomon, family man, fence, and Charles Dickens' inspiration for the character of Fagin in Oliver Twist. more
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![FIVE SEASONS [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/742.jpg)
FIVE SEASONS [from the CAAMA Collection]
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
In these fast and modern times, the Numurindi people are still guided by the seasons and stories of the Dreamtime. This observational documentary focuses on Moses Numamurdirdi and his families fight to hold onto their culture and ways in an ever-changing world. more
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FLOATING ... LIKE WIND BLOW 'EM ABOUT
1975 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 58 min
A film by Michael Edols. Available on DVD and Vimeo-on-Demand as part of the ASPECTS OF A LIFE collection. more