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Politics (3/4)
Politicians, political organisations and processes, in Australia and internationally, including biographical studies of prime ministers (Chifley and Whitlam) and other political figures such as Lionel Murphy; studies of parliamentary institutions; and stories of election campaigns and political change in various countries.
LOUSY LITTLE SIXPENCE
1983 (G) 54 min
DIGITALLY RESTORED! In NSW, in 1909, the Aborigines Protection Board planned to break up Aboriginal communities by forcibly removing their children and hiring them out as servants to white employers. The title of this powerful documentary comes from the wages that were to be paid to the children. Many never saw that lousy... more
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MAKE IT RIGHT! [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1988 (G) 21 min
MAKE IT RIGHT! is a unique record of the landmark 1988 Barunga Festival of Aboriginal Sport and Culture at which Prime Minister Bob Hawke made commitments (unfulfilled) to negotiate a treaty with Aboriginal people. more
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MAN WITHOUT PIGS
1990 (G) 59 min
MAN WITHOUT PIGS offers a rare insight into the dynamics of village life in Papua New Guinea. The film explores the antagonism aroused when conflict between traditional custom and Western values occurs in an isolated community. more
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MESSAGE FROM MUNGO
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 70 min
WINNER! UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION OF VICTORIA MEDIA AWARDS in the Category of "Promotion of Indigenous Recognition". The story of the interaction between Scientists and the Custodians of Indigenous Heritage at Lake Mungo, one of the world's richest archaeological sites. more
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MILLION ACRES A YEAR, A
2002 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
The devastating story of an ecological disaster: the epic history of post-war agricultural development in Western Australia and the personal journeys of a rural vanguard who came to acknowledge that current forms of agriculture were not sustainable. The re-release of a remarkable documentary from 2002, still powerfully... more
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MINISTER WITHOUT MONEY
2005 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 28 min
Minister Without Money portrays Dr John Waiko's political rise and fall fourteen years after the first film about Waiko, Man Without Pigs (1990) which focused on the significance of Dr Waiko's achievement as the first Indigenous scholar to gain the title of Professor in Papua New Guinea. more
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MORNING SUN
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 117 min
A brilliant portrait of China's "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" of the 1960s and 70s. Another extraordinary film from the team that made the award-winning THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE. more
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MURIEL MATTERS
2013 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 27 min
Adelaide-born actress and elocutionist Muriel Matters has been neglected by mainstream history, but in the early 1900s was a pivotal figure in the fight for women's rights in Britain and was renowned for her daring escapades to draw attention to the cause. 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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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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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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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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PUNISHED NOT PROTECTED
2004 (PG) 58 min
PUNISHED NOT PROTECTED is an educational documentary series in four parts (on one DVD) featuring the views of leading Australians and concerned citizens on the effects of government policy on asylum seekers and temporary protection visa holders. more
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ROAD TO HOME, THE
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 55 min
A portrait of the West Papuan Benny Wenda, now in exile in England, and his on-going fight for the right to self-determination for his people. more
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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
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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SERIOUS UNDERTAKINGS
1983 (G) 28 min
A fascinating film about Australian culture, politics, film and pleasure, and the context in which images of femininity and masculinity are produced. more
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SHADOW PANIC
1989/2020 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 25 min
The feminist classic from 1989, now restored from original 16mm film materials. An innovative film by Margot Nash (director of VACANT POSSESSION and THE SILENCES) based on "the idea of structuring a film via the female gaze". more
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SHADOW PLAY
2001 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: M) 79 min
In Indonesia, on 30 September 1965 a group of President Sukarno's guards murdered six generals who were anti-Communist. General Suharto blamed the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). Suharto grabbed power and set up death squads to murder up to a million accused Communist sympathisers. The documentary traces the events... 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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TENTMAKERS OF CAIRO, THE
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 93 min
Spanning three turbulent years in Egyptian life, from the 2011 revolution to the 2014 election of Abdel Fatah Al Sisi, this intimate documentary observes these events through the eyes of artisan tentmakers in a back street in Cairo. more
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THESE HEATHEN DREAMS: Journey of a Cultural Bolshevik - Christopher Barnett
2014 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 53 min
Once described by the press as "one of the most controversial figures on the Australian art scene", avant-garde poet and playwright Christopher Barnett achieved a level of notoriety in the Melbourne underground theatre scene during the 70s and 80s, before self-exiling to France. more
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THIS IS HOW YOU'LL MAKE YOUR BED IN PRISON
2009 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 10 min
The story of Vickie Lee Roach, an Aboriginal woman in an Australian prison who challenged the Federal government to gain the right to vote ... and won. 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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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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TWO (2) DEGREES
2013 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 90 min
2 DEGREES tells two stories: first, the chaotic failure of the UN negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen; and the second takes us to the streets of Port Augusta, a small Australian town, and follows the community's passionate efforts to replace coal-fired power stations with solar thermal power. 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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VALENCIA DIARY
1992 (G) 108 min
Valencia Diary is the chronicle of a Southern Philippine village at a time when daily life was charged with tension at the impending collapse of the Marcos regime. 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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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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WRONG SIDE OF THE BUS
2009 (PG) 56 min
Sidney Bloch, a professor of psychiatry, returns to South Africa from Melbourne for his medical school reunion. He's determined to resolve his guilt for colluding with Apartheid that has troubled him for forty years. He's accompanied by his teenage son, Aaron, who turns out to be his harshest critic. more
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