MY REMBETIKA BLUES
Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music of the streets and a music of refugees. In this essay style documentary filmmaker Mary Zournazi explores the heart and soul of Rembetika music through peoples’ stories of love, loss and belonging, as well as her own. (Producer: Tom Zubrycki)
ABLAZE
Opera singer Tiriki Onus sets out to uncover the mystery surrounding the life of his Indigenous grandfather, William Bill Onus – charismatic Aboriginal cultural leader, entrepreneur, theatre impresario and, probably, the first Indigenous filmmaker. (Directors: Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus, Producer: Tom Zubrycki)
SENSES OF CINEMA
In mid 60’s in Australia and around the world artists and filmmakers organised filmmakers cooperatives supporting self-managed production, distribution and exhibition. The Co-ops nurtured Australia’s cinema renaissance and created new markets for strikingly innovate Australian content. It was a time that was rich, reckless and rewarding.
THE WEATHER DIARIES
Sydney filmmaker Kathy Drayton muses on what the future holds for her musician daughter amidst the threats of climate change and mass extinction. (Producer: Tom Zubrycki)
GARDENS OF STONE
Gardens of Stone is short documentary which tells a story of the efforts of traditional owners, bushwalkers and scientists to save a landscape of spectacular sandstone towers from the impact of underground mining. It calls for a conservation reserve right on the doorstep of the town of Lithgow, a town which for decades has been the epicentre of a community servicing the areas many coal mines.
UNDERMINED -TALES FROM THE KIMBERLEY
Australia’s vast and unspoiled Kimberley region is under threat, with mining, pastoralism and irrigated agriculture driving an unprecedented land grab. What will be left of over 200 remote Aboriginal communities?
TEACH A MAN TO FISH
Teach a Man to Fish is a warts-and-all autobiographical, lyrical, cinematic and comedic documentary, following Grant Saunders emotional journey from Aboriginal filmmaker, writer and musician to fisherman.
HOPE ROAD
A refugee from the Sudanese civil war, Zacharia (one of the ‘lost boys’ of Sudan) lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife and children. He desperately wants to do something for his Sudanese village, now in the newly created nation of South Sudan. His dream is to build a much-needed school.
FAIR GAME
A profile of controversial football player, Heritier Lumumba, whose journey to understand his black identity collides with an AFL struggling with race issues. Through exclusive access, FAIR GAME uncovers the personal and professional life of an extraordinary Australian - a man who at the top of his game dares to hold a mirror to a nation that doesn’t like what it sees.
DOGS OF DEMOCRACY
Filmmaker Mary Zournazi explores life on the streets of Athens through the eyes its stray dogs and the people who look after them. The documentary is about how Greece have become the ‘stray dogs of Europe’, and how the dogs have become a symbol of hope for the people and for the anti-austerity movement. This is a universal story about love and loyalty and what we might learn from animals
THE PANTHER WITHIN
Joe Murray, a member of the stolen generation, was a chameleon. In his early years Joe was a part of a boxing tent troupe and was known as the ‘Black Panther’ in the ring because of his incredible speed and lightning punches. This is a journey of discovery as the filmmaker, his grandson, unravels the background to his family identity.
BIG BOSS
Big Boss documents the life story of Baymarrwangga, from her time as a young girl on the island, the coming of the mission in 1922, to being photographed by Donald Thomson in 1937, and to her current role as custodian and initiator of the Crocodile Rangers Program and the Yan-nhangu Dictionary project.
THE HUNGRY TIDE
The Pacific nation of Kiribati will be one of the world’s first nations to disappear as a result of climate change. Maria Tiimon, a Kiribati woman living in Sydney, has the task of alerting the world to her sinking homeland. Shy at first, we watch her grow in confidence as she takes her country’s message to the world.
LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS
An intimate and informative insight into influential and ground-breaking Australian Indigenous artist Danny Eastwood who has been working in the Blacktown community in Sydney for over 30 years.
THE SUNNYBOY
Frontman Jeremy Oxley of the Australian band the Sunnyboys has had a 30-year battle with schizophrenia. A meditation on a condition often stigmatised and misunderstood, The Sunnyboy buries below the surface of Jeremy’s public identity to explore his own reality. The film follows Jeremy as he tentatively unpicks his confused thoughts and feelings about the past with his brother Peter. From his struggle with the physical effects of years spent self-medicating to his hopeful contemplation of a married future and a daring return to the stage,
STOLEN
Filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw travel to North Africa intending to make one film only to discover a hidden truth that takes them on a journey they could never have imagined.
The film follows the story of a Saharawi refugee separated from her mother since she was a toddler and reunited through a UN family reunion program. The reunion reveals a secret and the film quickly spirals into another world.
INTERVENTION - KATHERINE NT.
A record of the impact of the first year of The Emergency Intervention in the Northern Territory region of Katherine and the surrounding communities of Beswick, Barunga, Eva Valley and Binjari. The documentary was shot over a period of 8-months and features the lives of ordinary community residents as they experience the Intervention first hand, as well as the various government and business workers who came together to implement it.
WANJA
A documentary about ‘The Block’, through the eyes of Auntie Barb and the life of Wanja her blue heeler dog, recently deceased. The Block’s many and varied stories of Wanja reflect on the issues affecting this indigenous community in the heart of Sydney.
The stories of Wanja tell us how the tension between the community and police escalated, why the housing has continued to deteriorate and largely been demolished, and why the strength of the community - it’s elders, moved on.
TEMPLE OF DREAMS
Fadi Rahman is young, charismatic and ambitious. With the help of a team of Lebanese volunteers, he runs a youth centre and gymnasium in Sydney's west. The Centre, which has no government funding, is struggling in the face of council planning regulations and funding shortfalls. Fadi sets out to solve all their problems with the help of three determined, but often argumentative, cohorts.
VIETNAM SYMPHONY
In 1965, as Hanoi faced the threat of massive US bombing, students and teachers from the conservatorium of music fled to the countryside, where they built an entire campus underground: this is their story.