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Family (2/7)
Family dynamics, family problems and personal development in the context of the family, in Australia, the Philippines and South America, including families from culturally diverse backgrounds in Australia, "blended" families, parents dealing with children and vice versa, family survival in extreme conditions, and stories of Indigenous Australian families, the Stolen Generations and family reunion.
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
CROCODILE DREAMING
2006 (M) 27 min
A stone holding the stories and songs of the ancestors has been stolen from its proper location and subsequently causes the death of two children. It must be found and brought back to restore the right order. The local Aboriginal mob cannot carry out this task alone and calls for Burrimmilla (David Gulpilil). more
CROSS LIFE
2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 100 min
CROSS LIFE is the first feature film directed by Claire McCarthy, a rapidly emerging new star of Australian cinema. Her second feature is the acclaimed THE WAITING CITY, filmed in India and released nationally through Hopscotch Films. more
![DESTINY IN ALICE [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/3325.jpg)
DESTINY IN ALICE [from the CAAMA Collection]
2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 27 min
A light-hearted look at the Lesbian community of Alice Springs in central Australia. more
DREAM OF LOVE, THE
2005 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 26 min
An intensely personal story by filmmaker Lawrence Johnston about his parents' troubled 59-year mixed-race marriage and the effect of the relationship and domestic violence on the sons and daughters of the family. more
DRIVE
2010 (M) 55 min
In 1915 the biggest killer of young Australian males was Gallipoli. Today the biggest killer of young men aged 18-25 years is the road. Young men are dying in high speed, single vehicle crashes, crumpled in metal coffins, on lonely rural roads. Why do they die? Why do they live? Speed is hypnotic. Risk is freedom. Cars... more
DRIVING WITH RICHARD
1992 (G) 50 min
DRIVING WITH RICHARD is the story of a remarkable friendship between two women - Deirdre Croft and Carley Pukallus. Deirdre and Carley have provided support for each other for over six years as they cope with the trauma, hardship and enormous challenge of caring for their handicapped children. 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
ELECTRIC SHADOWS: The Story of a Cinema
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 50 min
Electric Shadows: The Story of a Cinema tracks the history of the cinema, through both the good times and the tough times, and looks at the cinema's emergence as something of an icon in the Canberra cultural scene. INCLUDES EXTRA FEATURES. more
EXILE IN SARAJEVO
1996 (M) 91 min
A passionate, cinematically innovative story of the siege of Sarajevo from the viewpoint of Australian, Tahir Cambis and Sarajevan, Alma Sahbaz. Rich in imagery with a wonderful music score - Alma and Tahir take us on a kaleidoscopic adventure as they chart the soul of a city in exile. more
FACING THE DEMONS
1999 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 57 min
A powerful documentary about restorative justice and conferencing. The story of a journey to bring the family and friends of a murdered boy together in one room with those convicted of his killing. more
FAHIMEH'S STORY
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 83 min
A powerful and engrossing documentary by a young Iranian-Australian filmmaker observing the relationship between an Iranian woman, Fahimeh, her Australian husband some 30 years her senior, their adult children from their earlier marriages, and Fahimeh's ex-husband who arrives unexpectedly from Iran. more
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FIRE
1997 (PG) 55 min
On 8 January 1994, Sydney was in the grip of an intense heat wave. Without warning, a quiet suburban street exploded into fire and in the space of just fifteen minutes, many homes were reduced to smouldering heaps of ash. This film documents the challenges faced by the community as they go about the prospect of rebuilding... more
FIFTY YEARS OF SILENCE
1994 (M) 57 min
50 YEARS OF SILENCE tells the story of Jan Ruff-O'Herne and her experience of enforced prostitution at the hands of the Japanese military during World War II. As the first European woman to go public on this issue Jan faced the difficult decision to reveal her secret to her family, her friends and her parish. more
![FINDING PLACE [from the CAAMA Collection]](/images/small/2886.jpg)
FINDING PLACE [from the CAAMA Collection]
2007 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 22 min
A film about manhood and the problems of living in two cultures. more
FREEDOM STORIES
2015 (PG) 99 min
Explores the achievements of former 'boat people' who arrived from the Middle-East around the watershed year of 2001. Locked in remote detention centres and then placed on temporary protection visas, their limbo lasted for years. Now Australian citizens, they are building secure lives and contributing to their new country. more
FROHE OSTERN! HAPPY EASTER
2008 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min
The story of joyful Easter camping rituals celebrating the way in which a group of German families have made their home in Australia over three generations. more
FROM UNDER THE RUBBLE
2018 (M) 76 min
The Samouni family story: a powerful civilian perspective on the violent clash between Palestinians and Israeli armed forces in Gaza. Australian filmmaker Anne Tsoulis has created an intimate and unflinching film about an appalling crisis. more
GANDHI'S CHILDREN
2008 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 185 min
GANDHI'S CHILDREN is an award-winning film by David MacDougall about abandoned or orphaned boys living in a charitable Home in one of the poorer quarters of New Delhi, India, building a society of their own within the institutional environment. more
GENOCIDE IN THE WILDFLOWER STATE
2024 (M) 58 min
An intensively researched documentary which describes a violent, state-run system of eugenics, racial absorption, and social assimilation in 20th century Western Australia. more
HABITS OF NEW NORCIA, THE
2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min
Re-release of a remarkable documentary from 2000: the story of the Benedictine Aboriginal Mission at New Norcia, in Western Australia. Now a popular tourist destination north of Perth, the Mission holds harsh memories for the former Aboriginal "inmates" who were placed there during the 1920s through to the 1960s. more
HILLMEN, THE - a Soccer Fable
1996 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 56 min
A story about cross-cultural relationships, the generation gap and what it's like to lose. ... A film by Steve Thomas. WINNER! BEST TV DOCUMENTARY in the AFI Awards,1996. more
HOPE ROAD
2017 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 103 min
Filmed over a 5-year period, HOPE ROAD is a film by Tom Zubrycki which follows an ambitious project undertaken by a Sudanese refugee in Australia, Zacharia Machiek, to build a much-needed school back in his home village, now part of the new nation of South Sudan. But life disrupts his best-laid plans ... more
![HOUSE-OPENING, THE [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7835.jpg)
HOUSE-OPENING, THE [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1980 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 42 min
"House-opening" ceremonies in a contemporary Aboriginal community combine elements of Aboriginal, Torres Strait and European cultures in dealing with death. A film by Judith MacDougall. more
HYBRID LIFE - group 1 of 3
2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 104 min
A series of programs which examine the lives of the children and the grandchildren of Australian migrants. This group from the series consists of 4 episodes: ISLANDS | FROM HERE TO ITHACA | MISSING VIETNAM | COSENZA VECCHIA. more
HYBRID LIFE - group 2 of 3
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 104 min
A series of programs which examine the lives of the children and the grandchildren of Australian migrants. This group consists of 4 episodes from the series: ALWAYS A VISITOR | THE LAST PECHENIUK | WEE JIMMY | PARRA. more
HYBRID LIFE - group 3 of 3
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 104 min
A series of programs which examine the lives of the children and the grandchildren of Australian migrants. This group from the series consists of 4 episodes: THE BRIDES OF KHAN | DEAR BERT | DELIVERY DAY | SPARKY D COMES TO TOWN. more
INNOCENCE BETRAYED
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min
In 1990 and 1991, three Aboriginal children were murdered in the rural town of Bowraville NSW - Colleen Craig, Evelyn Greenup and Clinton Speedy-Duroux. Despite two trials and a coroner's inquest, no-one was ever convicted of the murders. more
![IT'S A LONG ROAD BACK [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7693.jpg)
IT'S A LONG ROAD BACK [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1981 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 13 min
The story of one woman's struggle to regain her Aboriginality. more
JOHN FARROW: HOLLYWOOD'S MAN IN THE SHADOWS
2021 (PG) 96 min
This award-winning documentary is the first ever made about one of Hollywood's most prolific yet forgotten filmmakers, John Villiers Farrow (1904-1963). Part mystery, part biography, part film noir, the documentary follows the stranger-than-fiction story of this Australian-born, Oscar-winning filmmaker. more
KIM & HARLEY & THE KIDS (Family Foibles)
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 27 min
Kim and Harley and the Kids looks at how hard family life can be when resources are limited. Kim has four children including four-year-old twins. Her partner Harley is father to the youngest three kids and his heart is in the right place. They all live below the poverty line in a Ministry of Housing home in outer Melbourne. more
LAND OF THE LITTLE KINGS
2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 78 min
LAND OF THE LITTLE KINGS is a feature-length documentary which provides personal accounts of the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families. Through these stories of survivors of the stolen generations, musician and performer Archie Roach reconstructs his own story. more
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
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
LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED
1999 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 52 min
The story of the filmmaker's twin sister: despatched at the age of 15 to an institution where she was hidden away and arrangements made for the adoption of her baby. She then lived for the next 25 years without knowing where her child was or whether she was alive or dead. more
LILI (English version)
2019 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 85 min
LILI is a powerful exploration of inter-generational trauma; a mother, Lili, abandons her two-year-old daughter as she flees from Hungary in 1956 when the Soviets quash the Hungarian revolution. The trauma sparks a history of abandonment that spans four generations of Lili's family. more
LILI (Hungarian version)
2019 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 85 min
Egy anya, Lili, az '56-os forradalom közepén elmenekül Magyarországról, ezzel egy kontinenseken és generációkon átívelő elhagyás történet veszi kezdetét. more
![LINK-UP DIARY [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7692.jpg)
LINK-UP DIARY [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1987 (G) 87 min
On the road with Link-up, an organisation that re-unites Aboriginal families more
LITTLE TOWNS, BIG VOICES
2016 (M) 28 min
Taking a stand on domestic violence in regional, rural and remote communities: in this powerful short film by Fran Dobbie, this often hidden subject is brought to light by people willing to speak out about abuse to help create social change. more