Film Australia

The adventures of Golden Retriever pup Napoleon and his friend, the parrot Birdo Lucci.

A documentary detailing the spread of Hawaiian sugar-cane toads through Australia in a botched effort to introduce them as counter pests.

The animated history of leisure: that concept most commonly known as free time.

Documents Independence Day of Papua New Guinea on September 16, 1975, comparing the pageantry of local celebrations with the official ceremony in the capital. Also provides historical background about the area's 19th-century colonization by Holland, Germany, and Great Britain.

Cunnamulla, 800 kilometres west of Brisbane, is the end of the railway line. In the months leading up to a scorching Christmas in the bush, there's a lot more going on than the annual lizard race. Here, Aboriginal and white Australians live together but apart. Creativity struggles against indifference, eccentricity against conformity.

Anne Boyd, one of Australia's leading contemporary composers, teaches music at the publicly funded University of Sydney. This documentary chronicles a year in the life of an academic department that's under the financial gun.

The difficulty of separating sexual fantasy and reality becomes apparent in an investigation of an alleged sexual harassment case.

Every September Sydney's inner-suburban Leichhardt Council re-elects it mayor. Incumbent Larry Hand was popular with the citizenry but they don't vote for mayor - the 12 councillors do - and after three years of Larry, at least four councillors were after his job. When film-makers Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson settled in at Leichhardt Council in early 1994 the knives were already being sharpened. A battle royal was in the making, and so it came to pass. By the end of September Larry had fought the fight of his life, with Connolly and Anderson documenting every bit of it on film. Ambition, courage, envy, hatred, loyalty, betrayal, disaster, triumph... in other words, a classic study in politics.

A fire breaks out in a multi-story hospital in the middle of the night and a male nurse and a nursing sister save many lives during a fire in a major hospital.

Aussie boys of Asian descent candidly discuss their status as a "minority within a minority".

The Douglas Mawson Antarctic Expedition of 1912 is considered one of the most amazing feats of endurance of all time. Although his two companions perished, Douglas Mawson survived, but how? In a bold historical experiment, scientist and adventurer Tim Jarvis is retracing the gruelling experience, with the same meagre rations, primitive clothing and equipment to uncover what happened to Mawson physically — and mentally — as a man hanging on the precipice of life and death.

The story of how Australia's 'ANZAC myth' was born and the role of General John Monash in this process as soldier and statesman both during and after WW1.

Everyday life in the Waks household is a logistical challenge of monumental proportions. There are two minibuses to move the family around and the kitchen in its suburban Melbourne home has five ovens for kosher cooking. The family follows an orthodox form of Judaism. School, work, synagogue and socialising all take place within a tight-knit Jewish community.

Far right and anti-immigration politics have been on the rise worldwide. In Australia, as in many other western countries, as Ordinary People was filming, a new political force began drawing on the discontent of those who felt excluded from the promised benefits of globalisation. This revealing documentary follows One Nation candidate Colene Hughes over two years and two elections as her idealistic fervour slowly turns to disillusionment. Initially for Colene and her supporters, One Nation seems to offer true democracy and a way of knocking the country back into shape. But when Colene starts to question the control of party leaders, the gloves come off and, at the party’s annual general meeting, the two forces collide.

For 24 years East Timor's freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos Horta campaigned to secure independence for his country, a Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The Diplomat takes up Ramos Horta's story in the final dramatic stages of his long journey - the fall of Indonesia's President Suharto, the referendum to determine East Timor's future, the overwhelming vote for independence, the devastating carnage that ensued, the intervention of United Nations peacekeepers, and Ramos Horta's final triumphant return to his homeland.

This animated short film traces the adventures of a young Muttaburrasaurus who gets separated from his family. He wanders through wooded and coastal areas encountering other prehistoric animals and reptiles as he tries to find his way home.

An observational documentary which looks at Sydney’s first community Aboriginal radio station, 88.9 Radio Redfern. Set against a backdrop of contemporary Aboriginal music, 88.9 Radio Redfern offers a special and rare exploration of the people, attitudes and philosophies behind the lead up to a different type of celebration of Australia’s Bicentennial Year. Throughout 1988, 88.9 Radio Redfern became an important focal point for communication and solidarity within the Aboriginal community. The film reveals how urban blacks are adapting social structures such as the mass media to serve their needs.

This film explores the pressures experienced by Aboriginal women living in the city, and the effect that these pressures also have on their men and their children. In spite of all life's difficulties, the women seem to survive the urban environment better than the men. Their humour, intelligence and resilience in the face of adversity shines through.

In 1943, the Imperial Japanese Secret Service made a film called Calling Australia! to show the "exemplary conditions" under which prisoners of war were kept, and to "soften up" the Australian public for the anticipated occupation of their country by Japanese forces. Prisoners of Propaganda tells why the film was made, and how it came to be forgotten.

After the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 36,000 Australian men and women, part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), marched onto Japanese soil. They were assigned the toughest and most dangerous area of Japan: Hiroshima Prefecture, which included the atom-bombed city. The Forgotten Force tells for the first time the story of Australia's role in Japan. Rare archival and private footage, photographs and eyewitness accounts from both sides vividly recreate the atmosphere of post-war Japan - the horror of Hiroshima and its aftermath; the struggle to build a new "democratic" society while under the heel of military rule; the growth from suspicion and fear to friendship and trust between foes.