Decades before Magic Mike and The Chippendales there was Crystal T's – the home of Melbourne's very own all-male nude revue. FOR HER EYES ONLY is a fascinating 1985 documentary by filmmaker Brian Jones ('Coming Of Age') that shows Melbourne, Australia at a turning point, shaking off the prudishness of the past to embrace a new sexual freedom that was sweeping the nation.
Ruby has started a business baking cakes from home. At the last minute, she has been tasked with creating the centrepiece cake at a friend’s wedding. Now, along with her aloof partner Tom, she must navigate a broken-down car, dismissive parents, unhelpful friends and other obstacles in order to make it to the wedding on time.
This documentary program follows the intense transformation of Aretha from “awkward loner” to “cool person”, by talking to some of the coolest people ever known (in Melbourne), as she gains secret insider knowledge in hopes that they can help her to overcome being a social reject.
When Melbourne’s cultural hub is left devastated post-pandemic, the creative industry, like many others, is ravaged. Set amongst the ashes of the cities arts scene, BOHEMIA is a hybrid of documentary, music video, and next generation concert film that powerfully recounts the story of this fallen angel of Australian culture and asks the looming question: “what now?”. Shadowy underground musician VANTA and debutant director Madeline Royce team up with a decorated collective of young creatives to contend that art in the pandemic need not be a compromise, but an evolution.
Two friends bump into another and discuss home ownership, wealth disparity and generational inequality while wandering the CBD.
A 16mm record of the anti-nuclear demonstration in Melbourne, Australia on Palm Sunday 1985. The soundtrack is made from several group chants recorded at Down to Earth Confests during the 1980's.
In the context of Australia's cold war a 'hidden history' of Melbourne's Realist film movement (1945-1959) is explored through the first person account of a filmmaker of another generation, speaking to the 'indy-media' movement of the present day.
A short look into the minds of Melbournes graffiti writers and the relationship Melbourne has with its adopted graffiti culture.
Aki's Imagination is imbued through Tobu Himeo aka the Floating Girls. As a Japanese born Australian artist, Aki Yaguchi moulds her artwork around the interplay between her heritage and being a women within a male dominated space.
Raed Melki is a troubled musician struggling with his own mortality and his inability to affect change in the music industry. He soon discovers that speaking truth to power can be a dangerous game.
In the 1800s, brickmaking was one of the largest manufacturing industries in Australia. Hoffman's Brickworks in Brunswick, Victoria, was a leader of this industry, running for 133 years and fostering a strong union. Indeed Hoffman's was the birthplace of the Brickmaker's Union in Victoria. In this film, director Grant Hobson covers the final week of operation of this historic site, in December 1993. He interviews the union representatives and the close family of workers, some of whom he is able to reunite in May 2010 on the site. It is a nostalgic reflection on the heyday and demise of brickmaking in Victoria, as well as capturing the colourful personalities that illustrate the post-war migrant experience in relation to work and settling in Melbourne.
In the 1870s Victorian politicians debated the virtues of constructing a 20km-long railway through Melbourne's east, simply to circumvent a privately-owned railway from South Yarra to Flinders Street Station. By 1878 the private railway had been purchased by the Victorian Government and there was no longer a need to build the orbital railway. But greedy politicians pushed legislation through parliament, authorising the construction of the railway through their own private land holdings. This is the story of Melbourne's Outer Circle Railway.
Lindani, a neurotic young trans man, struggles to tell his partner Tam he loves them after a random encounter with a stranger shakes his self-confidence. But as he finds himself pushed and pulled in all directions by the perceptions of others, can Lindani reconnect with himself enough to figure out how he really feels?
The Ripple Effect is a powerful documentary primarily centred around St Kilda legend and proud Noongar Nicky Winmar's generation-defining stand against racism at Victoria Park in 1993.
Rowland S. Howard, the Primitive Calculators, Ollie Olsen, Phillip Brophy and many others proffer their recollections and air their animosities in a tribute to the underground music scene of '77-'81 in Melbourne, Australia. This is a warts and all look at the Melbourne underground music scene of 1977 to 1981 that spawned the likes of Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Ollie Olsen, The Birthday Party, the Primitive Calculators, The Ears as well as venues such as the Crystal Ballroom and others that fostered what became known as the Little Band scene.
Bikes for Africa is an entertaining, insightful and moving documentary following the life adventures of Hap Cameron and Mandy Todd, and their attempt to help implement a self sustainable bike workshop in rural Namibia with a container load secondhand donated bikes from Melbourne. The film investigates how a bicycle can fundamentally change the lives of rural Africans, and brings to focus the great works of two-wheeled charities Bicycles for Humanity and the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia.
Ian Stahlhut's 1992 documentary of Judy Garland's 1964 Australian Tour.
Charlie is a refugee from South Sudan who works as a bouncer at a Melbourne pub. An altercation with a local man reveals that sometimes people have more in common with each other than is first apparent.
Filmed on location in Melbourne this is a tale of justice and revenge when two cops decide that the court system has failed and it is now up to them to take the law into their own hands. Cast includes Ian Scott, Elizabeth Huntley, Jan Friedl, James Clayden, John Howard, Stephen Cummins, Barry Dickins, Joe Dolce, Nigel Buesst, Neil Gladwin. Music by Chris Knowles, Stephen Cummins, Ollie Olsen. Director of photography, Laurie McInnes.