Andrew Pike

ALLIES is a landmark documentary from 1983, made at the time of Bob Hawke’s unequivocal embrace of the American alliance.

Lake Mungo is an ancient Pleistocene lake-bed in south-western New South Wales, and is one of the world’s richest archaeological sites. Message from Mungo focuses on the interface over the last 40 years between the scientists on one hand, and, on the other, the Indigenous communities who identify with the land and with the human remains revealed at the site. This interface has often been deeply troubled and contentious, but within the conflict and its gradual resolution lies a moving story of the progressive empowerment of the traditional custodians of the area.

ANGELS OF WAR captures the experiences of villagers who lived through the Papua New Guinea campaign. Caught up in a war they could not understand or influence, they had no choice but to obey whoever held the gun. Their homes were bombed. They starved as refugees in the bush. They were conscripted as carriers. They fought as infantrymen and guerillas. In Japanese-held areas, they were forced to collaborate or risk execution; some were later hanged for treason by the Australians.

Explores behind the big screen to meet the filmmakers, distributors and exhibitors who bring Australian films to us, the audience. Closures of many independent art-house cinemas like Electric Shadows in Canberra in 2006 have made fair and equitable screening of Australian films increasingly difficult. Exhibitors debate the efficacy of the industry's Code of Conduct and unfair trade practices, while a growing number of Australian films go unreleased.

A documentary about Australian animation pioneer Eric Porter’s work on the iconic Aeroplane Jelly animated promos of the 1940s and 1950s.

The story of a Japanese scholar, Minoru Hokari, who, before his death in 2004 at the age of 32, achieved work which today commands an ever-widening audience. It is a story of cross-cultural understanding, how Gurindji Elders in the Northern Territory tasked Minoru to relay stories from their culture to a wider world.

Ben Chifley (1885 – 1951) was a railway engine-driver who became Australia's best-loved Prime Minister in 1945. He was a politician from an Irish-Australian working class background who lived by principles of compassion and concern for his fellow Australians. His philosophy and example have never been more relevant than in the political arena of today. As Prime Minister and Treasurer, he had a profound effect on the path of Australian history following World War Two, and many advantages enjoyed in our society that we take for granted today are the product of his vision.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal woman from Utopia in central Australia who began to paint on canvas when she was about 78 years old. In the 8 years before her death in 1996, she produced a staggering output of over 3,000 canvasses, some of which are now valued more highly (in monetary terms) than the work of most other female Australian artists. The exhibition of Emily Kame Kngwarreye's paintings which toured to Osaka and Tokyo in 2008 is arguably the biggest, most comprehensive single artist exhibition to travel internationally from Australia. (From Kanopy)