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History - Australian (3/11)
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.
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
![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
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
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
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
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
![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
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
DEMON FAULT
2002 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min
Miners, environmentalists, police, landowners and Aboriginal people come head to head in a deadly serious yet crazy battle over a gold mine, located in a sacred and ecologically sensitive region of Australia's fast-disappearing wilderness. more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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