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Sociology (1/3)
The study of society in Australia and internationally, including observational films from India, Indigenous communities in Australia, Papua New Guinea and South Africa.
AGE OF REASON, THE
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 87 min
In this fifth and final film in his Doon School Quintet, filmmaker David MacDougall focuses on the life of one student at Doon school, an all-boys academically selective boarding school in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. more
AYA
1990 (PG) 95 min
Aya arrives in Australia with her husband, an Australian soldier who was with the occupation forces in Japan. Aya forms a close bond with Mac, a close friend of Frank's, whose wartime experiences left him with a deep regard for Japanese culture. But Frank wants Aya to forget her Japanese past. Suffering cultural shock and... more
BIG ALL AT ONCE
2004 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 52 min
What is it like to be leaving school and suddenly having to make crucial choices about your life? This documentary intimately follows three different 18-year-olds, as they are spat out of high school and struggle to piece together their adult identities in their own way. more
BILLAL
1996 (M) 86 min
Sixteen-year-old Lebanese-Australian Billal is struck by a car in the aftermath of fighting between Anglo–Australian and Lebanese youths on a state housing estate in south-west Sydney. Billal is hospitalised with permanent brain damage. The film follows Billal's long fight back to some sort of health, and the stresses... more
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
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
BYSTANDER STORY, THE
2021 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 30 min
Fusing studio re-enactments, interviews, archival, bodycam and CCTV footage to tell a radically new story about psychology's bystander experiments, The Bystander Story investigates how strangers come together to help strangers – culminating with the bystanders who tried to prevent the killing of George Floyd. more
![COLLUM CALLING CANBERRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]](/images/small/7239.jpg)
COLLUM CALLING CANBERRA [from the AIATSIS Collection]
1981 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 56 min
A cattle station's view of negotiating with a distant bureaucracy. more
COWBOY AND MARIA IN TOWN
1991 (G) 59 min
Attracted by the myths of town life and the chance of work, people from villages all over Papua New Guinea have come to the towns. COWBOY AND MARIA IN TOWN tells the story of two such migrants living in the settlements that surround the capital, Port Moresby. 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
DOGS OF DEMOCRACY
2016 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: PG) 58 min
WINNER! Spirit of Activism Award, Nevada Women's Film Festival, March 2017. WINNER! Best Documentary Feature, 2017 Imagine This: Women's International Film Festival, Brooklyn, New York! A documentary about the stray dogs of Athens and the people who take care of them. In the on-going financial crises of the 2010s,... more
DOON SCHOOL CHRONICLES
2000 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 140 min
Filmed over a two-year period by David MacDougall, this film looks at the life of Indian middle-class boys as they experience the effects of institutional, national, and global pressures during the transitional years from childhood to adulthood. 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
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
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
FLYING BOOMERANGS, THE
2006 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 26 min
24 Indigenous teenagers embark on the first Aussie Rules tour of South Africa. 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
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
GIRLS' TALES: Women discuss experiences of schooling
2015 (Classification Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G) 87 min
"GIRLS' TALES: Women discuss experiences of schooling" consists of three thirty-minute episodes. The documentary is a compilation of interviews in which adult women recollect the experiences and opportunities of their secondary school education. more
GREEN TEA AND CHERRY RIPE
1989 (G) 56 min
NOW DIGITALLY REMASTERED. A fascinating portrait of Japanese women who came to Australia as war brides, and their survival in an alien land. more