Ed Kuepper

Rex is a loner, and when he's told he doesn't have long to live, he embarks on an epic drive through the Australian outback from Broken Hill to Darwin to die on his own terms; but his journey reveals to him that before you can end your life, you have to live it, and to live it, you've got to share it.

The 1970s punk rock movement: New York had the Ramones, London had the Sex Pistols, Australia had the Saints. Stranded takes a look at the role four musicians from suburban Brisbane played in the explosion of one of the all time greatest musical movements. Featuring interviews with the members of the band, including its leaders Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey, as well as the likes of Sir Bob geldof, former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra and Buzzcocks guitarist Steve Diggle, Stranded examines how the oppresive and conservative government of Joh Bjelke-Peterson in the 1970s helped act as a catalyst for the rise of punk rock in Australia, and how as a result The Saints went on to be one of the most influential bands in the country.

Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen reigned over Queensland for 19 tumultuous years (1968–1987). Hugely popular, he presided over enormous growth, but corruption raged under his tenure, as did electoral manipulation and often violent suppression of dissent. This film tells Joh’s story through rare archival footage and revelatory interviews, exploring a life shaped by a hard yakka, god-fearing upbringing on his family’s farm. Trump’s spectre is evoked in Joh’s famously mangled and meandering way of speaking – brilliantly dramatised by Richard Roxburgh – alongside his unyielding execution of power and the desperate denial of his final days in office.

A chronological history of one of the most influential bands to come out of Australia, the Go-Betweens.