In 1984, Midnight Oil released their iconic record Red Sails in the Sunset. They embarked on a relentless tour around the nation performing raw and electrifying music that reignited the imagination of young Australians. That same year, their lead singer Peter Garrett committed to run for a Senate seat for the Nuclear Disarmament Party. With the mounting pressure of balancing the demands of music and politics this is the year that would make, but nearly break, Australia's most important rock and roll band. Thirty years in the making and featuring never seen before seen footage of the band on and off the stage, Midnight Oil: 1984 is the untold story of the year Australia’s most iconic rock band inspired the nation to believe in the power of music to change the world.
The 1970s punk rock movement: New York had the Ramones, London had the Sex Pistols, Australia had the Saints. Stranded takes a look at the role four musicians from suburban Brisbane played in the explosion of one of the all time greatest musical movements. Featuring interviews with the members of the band, including its leaders Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey, as well as the likes of Sir Bob geldof, former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra and Buzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle, Stranded examines how the oppresive and conservative government of Joh Bjelke-Peterson in the 1970s helped act as a catalyst for the rise of punk rock in Australia, and how as a result The Saints went on to be one of the most influential bands in the country.
Australian documentary filmmaker Ian Darling re-examines the incidents that marked the final 3 years of Indigenous footballer Adam Goodes' playing career. Made entirely from archival footage, photos and interviews sourced from television, radio and newspapers, the film reviews the national conversation that took place over this period.
Recorded in 1993 in Queensland’s notorious Boggo Road prison, this scorching live show – part of a triple bill with The Divinyls and Rose Tattoo – sees rock icon Billy Thorpe & his band return to Australia for the first time in 20 years and deliver rock n’ roll nirvana through a virtual replay of their legendary Sunbury set from 1972. The band are in full flight as they roll out all their big hits, including: Most People I Know Think That I’m Crazy , Mamma, Be Bop A Lula, Rock Me Baby, C.C. Rider, Rock ‘n’ Roll City, World Turning, Ooh Poo Pa Doo and many more.
Australiens Nationalparks - Der Regenwald
A retrospective documentary on filmmaker Andrew Leavold's debut feature, 'Lesbo-A-Go-Go' (2003). This is the tale of a man with big ideas but no budget who assembled a crew and set out to make a faux sixties exploitation film, the kind of film he would want to see though sadly at the time due to the niche nature of the subject matter very few else did. Despite its entrapment in distribution limbo for over a decade, 'Lesbo-A-Go-Go' has garnered a minor cult reputation internationally and this documentary explores the film's sordid production history as well as its enduring legacy. A no-holds-barred tell-all tale with interviews from cast, crew and industry professionals interspersed with never-before-seen alternate takes, bloopers and behind-the-scenes footage from the film.
Starting her life as Colin, a husband, father, policeman, film-projectionist and self-declared shoe fetishist, Colleen and her wife Heather's love transcended their gender roles. But what are the medical complications that can arise from transitioning later in life? Ian Thomson's Becoming Colleen examines the role of gender, about society's own transition to understanding, and a caring community that ultimately offers support for an individual to express themselves, to find comfortability in their own skin.
An exotic world of eroticism, witchcraft, masochism and strange secret places.
The Dreamtime is the Aboriginal worldview. It consists of many different dreaming's. If you look long enough at a bird, stone or a wave, you'll be surprised at what you will find. A surfing journey throughout Australia like never before. Featuring Luke Egan, Munga Barry, and Mark Occhilupo. The music of Not Drowning Waving, Schnell- Fenster, Yothu Yindi, The Woodentops, Concrete Blonde and INXS.
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.
Every day, Australian Damien Rider is haunted by his abusive childhood. Determined to find his peace, and ensure it happens to no other child, Damien sets upon an 800km solo paddle from his home in Coolangatta to Bondi Beach.
The people of Footscray are battlers and so is their football team. The 'mighty' Bulldogs haven't won a premiership since 1954. The club is close to broke and the AFL keeps trying to kill them off for the sake of the national competition. Year of the Dogs is a documentary following the fortunes of the Footscray Football club, its players, fans and staff as the club struggles to survive the 1996 Australian Football League season.
For almost a century the town of Grafton, NSW, has celebrated the magnificence of its jacaranda trees with an inspired festival.In the 1880s a German immigrant planted imported Jacaranda tree seeds along the avenues of Grafton in northern NSW. In 1935 the tree-lined avenues were of such splendour that the council of the day decided to hold a festival to celebrate the blossoming of the trees and the arrival of spring. This program shows how this festival has become an annual event that includes the crowing of The Jacaranda Queen.
To promote the release of his album Garth Brooks in... The Life of Chris Gaines, Garth Brooks appeared as Chris Gaines in a television "mockumentary," a version of VH1's seminal cable classic Behind the Music, featuring a totally made-up tale that just may be the greatest rock n' roll documentary ever made. This piece of art has everything that makes the story of being a rockstar fucking cool. It has childhood trauma, record label trauma, death, disfigurement, a plane crash, a car crash, sex addiction, redemption, a house fire, random unexplained commentary from Billy Joel, and more sex addiction.
A film about Men At Work, their hit single Down Under, and the Kookaburra controversy. The band were sued for copyright infringement and faced the label of 'plagiarists', 35 years after their success. An examination of the organic development of the song, its commercial success and cultural significance and questions the relationship between art and law, influence and copyright.
A profile of two men who go to exceptional lengths to improve – and in some cases, save – the lives of those with nowhere else to turn. They risk their freedom by supplying black market medicinal cannabis to thousands suffering from chronic and terminal illnesses.
Set in a social housing estate in central Sydney, 57 Lawson preserves the disparate voices of the tenants at a time when these communities are becoming increasingly marginalised by the city around them. A patient observation of the daily lives of the area’s inhabitants over the course of one evening, 57 Lawson is a hybrid drama-documentary film about a specific place at a specific time.
A lonely house-wife’s plan to end it all takes an unexpected turn when her last hurrah begins a radical journey of sexual exploration and personal re-invention.
Australian-born filmmaker George Miller offers a personal view of Australian films. He suggests that they can be regarded as visual music, public dreaming, mythology, and song-lines. In extrapolating the idea of movies as song-lines he examines feature films under the following categories: songs of the land; the bushman; the convicts; the bush-rangers; mates and larrikins; the digger; pommy bashing; the sheilas; gays; the wogs; blackfellas; and urban subversion. He then concludes that these films can be thought of as "Hymns that sing of Australia."
The extraordinary true story of Barney Miller, an emerging Pro-surfer who became a quadriplegic 17 years ago. Told by doctors he would never use his legs again, Barney defied all medical assessments through grit, self-belief, hard work and sheer guts. When Barney meets and falls in love with Kate, a girl with her own dreams of being a singer, he makes it his mission to only ask Kate to marry him when he can kneel down to propose, stand at the altar and dance at their wedding together.