Secrets of the Great Barrier Reef(2010)

Riding Giants(en)

Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.

Reila(nl)

Bony(en)

Bony, a great-great-grandson of legendary part-Aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte. Albert Harris had been a teenager when he knew Napolean; decades later, as a tribal elder, he had tracked and rescued Napoleon's descendant from the desert, after Bony's parents had tragically perished. 'Uncle' Albert taught the young white boy the ways of the desert. Now in 1990, Albert stands beside the 22-year-old Bony as he is inducted into the Northern Police Force. Bony is sent to Woongala. His first case concerns Angela Hemming, the young American wife of the district's most influential landowner. She claims that a Ned Bowen had attempted to rape her, but that she hadn't pressed charges on the condition he left town. Non of this rings true to Bony and he begins to investigate.

Black Man's Houses(en)

In 1832 the government of Van Diemen’s Land sent the last Aboriginal resistance fighters into exile at Wybalenna on Flinders Island, bringing an end to the Black War and opening a new chapter in the struggle for justice and survival by Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Black Man’s Houses tells a dramatic story of the quest by Aboriginal people to reclaim the graves of their ancestors against a background of racism and denial. Documenting a moving memorial re-enactment of the funeral of the great chief Manalargenna, the film also charts the cultural strength and resilience of his descendants as they are forced to fight for recognition in a society that is not ready to remember the terrible events of the past.

Healing Heart Feeling Country(en)

Witness country come alive as Mark Cora, proud Minjungbal man and cultural educator unveils the rich contexts that shape his evocative artwork, The Wind Dancer.

Rock Heart Fire(en)

Shot mostly at Uluru, the rock in the heart of Australia. The extreme heat damaged the emulsion of the film which is subsequently incised by the filmmaker. A ceremonial death and rebirth. The soundtrack was made by the Orchestra of Skin and Bone comprising of Ollie Olsen and John Murphy. The aborigines were from Narwietooma Station. 16mm.

Welcome to the Waks Family(en)

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.

Artifishal(en)

Narratives of ecologists and conservationists are pitted against the human tendency to engineer and control in this probing documentary on the lucrative salmon-hatchery industry.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner(en)

Orson Welles reads the poem especially for this film by Larry Jordan, which is dedicated to the late Wallace Berman, and is made possible by a grant from The National Endowment Of The Arts.

Sumus Maris(en)

A woman embarks on a journey through three pivotal stages, meditating on the cyclical nature of life, where the uncontrollable power of the sea reflects the essential purity of the world.

Shark's Paradise(en)

A mad man threatens to lure hundreds of sharks to the beach at Surfers Paradise Australia at the start of the tourist season, his price to hold off the sharks is $2 million. Our heroes do everything from escaping jail to risking death in a chemical factory, to stop him.

Black Velvet Band(en)

Period drama Black Velvet Band takes us back to Victorian times when a gang of petty crooks find themselves sentenced to transportation to Australia, their ship, however, docks in South Africa and the gang manage to make their escape. The film starred Nick Berry, Chris McHallem and Todd Carty, who had all previously appeared in EastEnders together. The initial idea came from McHallem, whilst Nick Berry, thanks to being the darling of ITV at the time because of his hit show Heartbeat, had the clout to get it made.

The Search for the Ocean's Super Predator(en)

There's a mysterious predator lurking in the depths of Australia's wild Southern Ocean, a beast that savagely devoured a great white shark in front of cinematographer David Riggs 11 years ago. Riggs's obsession to find the killer leads him to an aquatic battle zone that's remained hidden until now. Here, killer whales, colossal squid and great white sharks face off in an underwater coliseum where only the fiercest creatures of the marine world survive.

The Mermaid(es)

A trip that the author makes to a distant beach trying to find the place where his grandfather made a painting years ago.

General Hercules(en)

In June 1893, European prospectors unlawfully took claim to ‘The Golden Mile’ on Aboriginal land. In little over a hundred years the natural landscape has been transformed into the industrial hellscape of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. As incumbent Mayor John Bowler starts to campaign for a second term, independent prospector John ‘General Hercules’ Katahanas decides to run against him on an anti-corruption ticket. What starts out as a quirky David-vs-Goliath political battle, unravels into a portrait of a man, a town and a country sent mad by the timeless cycles of exploitation, racism and greed.

Un fleuve invisible(fr)

Walk the Tideline(fi)

The movie follows today’s beachcombers in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Japan. The same endless piles of trash left by humans cover all the shores. Our shared ocean is loaded with time travelers made of plastic, the fruit of our throwaway culture and our indifference. They are the seeds of destruction, as they end up in the entrails of creatures living in the sea. Most of the beachcombers share the same worries about the environment. Beside the plastic trash, many travelers drift between continents, such as various plants’ seeds. Like all species, they look for new living environments where they could survive on a warming planet.

BabaKiueria(en)

Imagine what it would be like if black settlers arrived to settle a continent inhabited by white natives? In 1788, the first white settlers arrived in Botany Bay to begin the process of white colonisation of Australia. But in Babakiueria, the roles are reversed in a delightful and light-hearted look at colonisation of a different kind. This satirical examination of black-white relations in Australia first screened on ABC TV in 1986 to widespread acclaim with both critics and audiences alike. This is the story of the fictitious land of Babakiueria, where white people are the minority and must obey black laws. Aboriginal actors Michelle Torres and Bob Maza (Heartland) and supported by a number of familiar faces from the time, including Cecily Polson (E-Street) and Tony Barry, who starred in major ABC-TV hits such as I Can Jump Puddles and his Penguin award-winning Scales of Justice. Babakiueria was awarded the United Nations Media Peace Prize in 1987.

A Film for Discussion(en)

A docu-drama shot in 1970, but not completed until 1973, the film sought to encapsulate in an experimental form issues that were under discussion within the Women’s Liberation Movement at this time and to thus contribute to action for change. In its numerous community screenings, active debate was encouraged as part of the viewing experience.

The Seafarers(en)

Members of the American Federation of Labor, the Atlantic & Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union commissioned budding filmmaker and magazine photographer Stanley Kubrick to direct this half-hour documentary. The director's first film in color, it is more of an industrial film than a documentary, it served as a promotional tool to recruit sailors to the union.