In a traditional tribal society in the South Pacific, a young girl, Wawa, falls in love with her chief’s grandson, Dain. When an inter-tribal war escalates, Wawa is unknowingly betrothed as part of a peace deal. The young lovers run away, refusing her arranged fate. They must choose between their hearts and the future of the tribe, while the villagers must wrestle with preserving their traditional culture and adapting it to the increasing outside demands for individual freedom.
During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.
It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship, and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.
When Jarah loses her husband, her child, her land and her innocence she embarks on a brutal journey of of retribution and revenge that transforms into redemption and reconciliation.
The true story of a part Aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.
The Australian Aborigines (in this film anyway) believe that this is the place where the green ants go to dream, and that if their dreams are disturbed, it will bring down disaster on us all. The Aborigines' belief is not shared by a giant mining company, which wants to tear open the soil and search for uranium.
Kate is on a plane taking Warren, her 18 year old Torres Strait Islander foster son, to meet Flo, his birth mother, who is gravely ill in hospital in Brisbane. Flo hasn't seen Warren since she took him to the hospital on Thursday Island when he was a toddler and the white authorities took him away. But as Warren, Flo and Kate all prepare themselves for the reunion, unbeknown to them, Kate's Brisbane based parents, Keith and Dellmay, are planning a different kind of reunion.
The remarkable life story of Eddie 'Koiki' Mabo; a Torres Strait Islander who left school at the age of 15, yet spearheaded the High Court challenge that overthrew the fiction of terra nullius.
The story of Dujuan, a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy living in Alice Springs, Australia, who is struggling to balance his traditional Arrernte/Garrwa upbringing with a state education.
In the winter of 1991 an ABC film crew spent six weeks following Sydney's Redfern police.
The inner city patrol of Redfern is predominantly working class with a large aboriginal and migrant population.
The police in this film are general duties officers mostly on mobile patrols.
At the time of filming 78% of police at Redfern were under the age of 25.
WINHANGANHA (Wiradjuri language: Remember, know, think) - is a lyrical journey of archival footage and sound, poetry and original composition. It is an examination of how archives and the legacies of collection affect First Nations people and wider Australia, told through the lens of acclaimed Wiradjuri artist, Jazz Money.
A second generation cameraman in Australia finds evidence that his father had filmed a nuclear test that allowed aboriginies to be exposed to and killed by radiation. He begins a search for a secret that if true, his government has already killed people to keep quiet.
Set in the 1890s in the central desert region of Australia, 'Serenades' tells the tale of Jila who is conceived when her Afghan cameleer father wins her Aboriginal mother in a card game.
Moogai is Bundjalung for ‘ghost’, and it is precisely a moogai that intrudes on the quiet home life of Sarah, Fergus and their newborn baby.
Blind from birth, Dr G Yunupingu found his identity through song and the haunting voice that has already become legend. His debut album introduced Australia to the Songlines and culture of his Elcho Island community, but now Dr G Yunupingu finds himself increasingly torn between city and country, present and past, self and the community to which he owes so much.
Fresh out of the academy, White Cop experiences his first taste of Aboriginal community life, as Black Cop puts him to the test.
Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.
An hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil.
In the estuaries and lagoons of the Northern Territory, freshwater and saltwater crocodile are hunted for their hides by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous hunters. This film shows Aboriginal people using age-old hunting techniques to land crocs either for food or for skins. The methods employed by the professional hunters, who earn as much as 3000 pounds during the season, are also depicted, followed by a brief look at how the hides are skinned and prepared before being transported to the leather factories of Sydney and Melbourne.
With problems on the home front, 15-year-old Murra is on the verge of lashing out. That is, until her policeman uncle thwarts her self-destructive behaviour with a lifeline: a “photo-safari for at-risk kids”. Murra isn’t entirely convinced, but she soon joins cantankerous Kylie, uptight Sean, happy-go-lucky Elvis, and camp counsellors Fernando and Michelle on a transformative bus trip to the Pilbara. On the trail, the teens learn about fun, friendship and first crushes, as well as the forces of ‘reality’ that puncture the bubble of youth.