Seventeen talented Australian directors from diverse artistic disciplines each create a chapter of the hauntingly beautiful novel by multi award-winning author Tim Winton. The linking and overlapping stories explore the extraordinary turning points in ordinary people’s lives in a stunning portrait of a small coastal community. As characters face second thoughts and regret, relationships irretrievably alter, resolves are made or broken, and lives change direction forever.
Jack Irish is a man getting his life back together again. A former criminal lawyer whose world imploded, he now spends his days as a part-time investigator, debt collector, apprentice cabinet maker, punter and sometime lover - the complete man really. Jack is an expert in finding those who don't want to be found - dead or alive. He helps out his mates while avoiding the past. That is until the past finds him.
Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.
Meet Albert, The Magic Pudding, Bunyip Bluegum, a splendid young koala and his seafaring friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff. Together they fight off the bungled attempts of pudding thieves, Possum and Wombat, and try to solve the mystery of Bunyip's parents' disappearance.
Jack Irish has no shortage of friends, but family members are few and far between. His wife was murdered by an ex-client and his father is a fading photo on the pubs football wall of fame. So when Des Connors, the last link to his dad, calls to ask for help in the matter of a missing son, Jack is more than happy to lend a hand. But sometimes prodigal sons go missing for a reason... As Jack begins to dig, he discovers that Gary Connors was a man with something to hide, and his friends are people with yet darker and even more deadly secrets.
The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba
The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an elderly man’s fight to save his son. Arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a figure pretty much everybody has an opinion about; perhaps more importantly, he serves as the emblem of an international arm wrestle over freedom of journalism, government corruption and unpunished war crimes. For his family members who face the prospect of losing him forever to the abyss of the US justice system, however, this David-and-Goliath struggle is personal – and, with his health declining in a British maximum-security prison and American government prosecutors pulling out all the stops to extradite him, the clock is ticking.
In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, Maria and Flora, a housekeeper, Lotte, and a solicitor, Arnold, attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son Sir Basil, a famous but struggling actor in London, and daughter Dorothy, a divorced and down at heel princess, convene at her deathbed. They come to make sure they can leave Australia with their hefty inheritance.
Set against the backdrop of the early eighties, Cliffy retraces his extraordinary journey from famously training in gumboots among cow paddocks through the epic six-day period of the ultra marathon and his emergence as Australia's most unlikely sporting hero. Based on a true story.
A comedy drama told from six different perspectives of a family who reunite in Adelaide when Mum plans to sell the family home. Any sense of togetherness quickly crumbles to reveal how fucked and glorious it is to be home.
Lonnie and Rick seem to be complete opposites, at first glance. A survivor of suicide, Lonnie is introverted and ill at ease around her parents, Lois and Harvey. Rick, meanwhile, is sunny and charismatic. But appearances can be deceiving, as their families learn when the teens begin a romance. Upset about Lonnie's influence on Rick, his parents forbid the pair to see each other -- with tragic consequences.
From myth to legend Rowland Howard appeared on the early Melbourne punk scene like a phantom out of Kafkaesque Prague or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A beautifully gaunt and gothic aristocrat, the unique distinctive fury of his guitar style shot him directly into the imagination of a generation. He was impeccable, the austerity of his artistry embodied in his finely wrought form, his obscure tastes and his intelligently wry wit. He radiated a searing personal integrity that never seemed to tarnish. Despite the trials and tribulations of his career, in an age of makeover and reinvention, Rowland Howard never ‘sold out’. With recent and moving interviews, archival interviews and other fascinating and original footage, AUTOLUMINESCENT traces the life of Rowland S Howard. Capturing moments with the man himself and intimate missives from those who knew him behind closed doors; words and images etch light into what has always been the mysterious dark.
The ABC telemovie event Dangerous Remedy tells the fascinating story of Dr Bertram Wainer. Living and working in Melbourne in the 1960s, Dr Wainer put his life at risk to expose police corruption in an effort to change the law on abortion and put an end to the illegal operations that were killing young women. It’s a truly inspiring story. Dr Wainer’s determination, even when his own life and that of his family’s was threatened, never faltered. He was living proof that one person can make a difference and change the status quo. With the support of Dr Wainer’s family, the filmmakers have endeavoured to capture the essence of his struggle to expose police corruption and change the law.
The Secret World of Og is a children's adventure about three young girls who venture into an underground cavern beneath their playhouse to look for their lost baby brother. There, they discover a land of little green people who are enamored by the world above but won't allow anyone to leave their cavern for fear they might "tell".
Jack Irish is thrown into a world of club owners, drug dealers and killers when he is hired by a judge to find a mysterious red book.
Michael Hutchence was flying high as the lead singer of the legendary rock band INXS until his untimely death in 1997. Richard Lowenstein’s documentary examines Hutchence’s deeply felt life through his many loves and demons.
Based in part on Robert F. Kennedy's book, "Thirteen Days," this film profiles the Kennedy Administration's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When his grandfather's drive-in cinema and home in the outback town of Wyndham is threatened with demolition, a twelve-year-old Aboriginal boy must journey through Australia's bush country — equipped only with ancient survival skills — to stop the city developers.
A year after the boys crossed dimensions, discovered magic and battled the restoring demon, they are back home in Bremin and are struggling with everyday teenage life. Felix has high hopes for the four heroes. He wants them to push the limits of their magical ability, working as a team to become masters of the arcane. But although he's unwilling to admit it, the boys have grown apart. The boys, once in perfect magical and elemental alignment, are a tangle of rivalry and distrust. On the verge of separating, the Nowhere Boys are drawn together for one last spell when Felix discovers a magically sealed 'Book of Shadows'. Unwittingly this releases a powerful force of chaos, and the gang is reluctantly drawn into a showdown that threatens their world and all they love...
As Sir David Attenborough turns 90, this intimate film presents new interviews, eye-opening behind-the-scenes footage and extraordinary clips from some of his most recent films. The doc, which was made for the occasion of Attenborough’s 90th birthday, was shot over seven years and follows him as he travels to Borneo, Morocco and the Galapagos to shoot wildlife specials. Anthony Geffen, the CEO of Atlantic Productions, commented, “This is such a special Attenborough film because unusually he is the subject. As I look back over the last seven years, I never fail to be amazed by his extraordinary ambition and drive to use the very latest technology to communicate the natural world to audiences around the globe. This film gives audiences the chance to see what it’s like to be on the road with David.”
