Sketches

Writer and Director Warwick Thornton has assembled a collection of the most poignant, sad, funny and absurd ghost stories from around Australia. He will bring them to life with the help of some of Australia's most iconic actors as the storytellers.

The United States fought the American Revolution primarily over King George III's Currency act, which forced the colonists to conduct their business only using printed bank notes borrowed from the Bank of England at interest. After the revolution, the new United States adopted a radically different economic system in which the government issued its own value-based money, so that private banks like the Bank of England were not siphoning off the wealth of the people through interest-bearing bank notes. But bankers are nothing if not dedicated to their schemes to acquire your wealth, and know full well how easy it is to corrupt a nation's leaders. Just one year after Mayer Amschel Rothschild had uttered his infamous "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws", the bankers succeeded in setting up a new Private Central Bank called the First Bank of the United States, largely through the efforts of the Rothschild's chief US supporter, Alexander Hamilton.

This is a detailed personal account of one of the worst incidents to take place during Israel's 2009 invasion of Gaza. Ten-year old Amal Samouni lost her father, brother and 48 members of her extended family. She spent three days trapped under the rubble and still suffers from fifteen pieces of shrapnel imbedded in her head. Her shocking story is brought vividly to the screen by director Anne Tsoulis who examines the events and the cost to those affected.

Art Critic Waldemar Januzczak presents this documentary which details french artist Toulouse-Lautrec's life.

Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It's an effortless performance, and, ultimately… a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never knew. Compelled and consumed, he dives in headfirst—and he's about to learn how savage and unforgiving art can be!

Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is both a cultural icon and a lasting source of artistic inspiration. His famous female figures, like Venus and Primavera, have become part of our shared visual memory and influence artists worldwide. Berlin director and art historian Grit Lederer explores Botticelli’s life and work, focusing on the Gemäldegalerie’s impressive collection. The film examines how his iconic paintings continue to inspire art and advertising today. Experts reveal what makes his style unique and why his work was forgotten for centuries after his death. Contemporary artists such as French artist Orlan and American Michael Joaquin Grey present works inspired by Botticelli. The documentary traces Botticelli’s enduring impact from Florence through Paris and New York to Berlin.

In 1942, an intelligence officer in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.

Drama which tells the story of comedian Tony Hancock's love affair with his friend's wife, and her fight to save the man and his career.

A hardened mercenary in the Foreign Legion begins to find his own humanity when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in Bosnia.

An account of the life and work of the Spanish clown, mime, acrobat and actor Marcelino Orbés (1873-1927), known as Marceline, who, between 1900 and 1914, was unanimously acclaimed as the best in the world.

The film begins with the First World War and ends in 1945. Without exception, recordings from this period were used, which came from weekly news reports from different countries. Previously unpublished scenes about the private life of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were also shown for the first time. The film was originally built into a frame story. The Off Commentary begins with the words: "This film [...] is a document of delusion that on the way to power tore an entire people and a whole world into disaster. This film portrays the suffering of a generation that only ended five to twelve. " The film premiered in Cologne on November 20, 1953, but was immediately banned by Federal Interior Minister Gerhard Schröder in agreement with the interior ministers of the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.

A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...

A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.

Magdalena and Michael have loved each other since they were children. But when the Nazis come to power, Michael rebels against the regime and is sentenced to fifteen years in a concentration camp. Magdalena, meanwhile, goes underground with the help of a friend and later immigrates to the Soviet Union. Michael, who has joined the Red Army, discovers on the way to Moscow that Magdalena is staying there. But when his plane lands, she is already on her way back to Germany. Michael hopes that one day, he and Magdalena will be reunited.

Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.

Christopher Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care.

In Old Moshi, Tanzania, a head is missing : the skull of Chief Meli, who fought the German colonial occupation of his territory and was executed in response to his resistance in 1900. This animated film, based on archival sources and oral accounts provided by Chief Meli's grandson, sheds light on the racist roots of physical anthropology and ethnological museums.

In 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War and on the heels of Nixon's announcement that U.S. troops would invade Cambodia, a mild-mannered English professor at UC Berkeley completed a startling book called The War Conspiracy. Yet, despite the fact that the author's publisher was Bobbs Merrill, a major literary brand, the book never reached the public domain. Little did the professor know there were powerful forces working behind the scenes to prevent its release. He would later discover that through its ties to ITT, a major shareholder in Bobbs Merrill, the Central Intelligence Agency was able to suppress the book.

A Bollywood session violinist finds expression in an unlikely place. The day unfolds to reveal startling truths about music, art, life and survival.

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.