
Steve Thomas
Directing
Biography
Steve Thomas is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and lecturer in documentary at the Victorian College of the Arts School of Film and Television. His previous documentary feature HOPE (2008) told the story of SIEV-X survivor Amal Basry. It won the ATOM Award for Best Social/Political Documentary and was a finalist in the Australian Human Rights Awards and Australian Directors Guild Awards
Known For

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.
Black Man's Houses

A new songline for 21st century Australia - a fresh look at the Cook legend from a First Nations' perspective - the songline tells of connection to country, resistance and survival and features the cheeky, acerbic and heartfelt showman - Steven Oliver and a host of outstanding, political Indigenous singer/songwriters.
Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky

With a career spanning well over a decade in the bloodiest, most violent subgenre of pro wrestling, David "Gweedo" Brown reflects on his time as a deathmatch wrestler.
Gweedo

An insight into the life of Indigenous singer Harold Blair, who achieved overseas success at a personal cost. In 1945, Harold broke free of the restrictions placed on his community to perform opera and begin to change the limitations of the era.
Harold

Sally leads ‘Woodend Community Bags’ - a group of unlikely activists fighting against single-use plastics by sewing reusable bags. Faced with a global pandemic, how will the group confront the new challenges that brings with it?
Stitched Together

With Greek and Turkish communities moving out of the area, the Clifton Hill Soccer Club must recruit from a newer wave of Asian immigrants or face extinction.
The Hillmen: A Soccer Fable
Four hundred asylum seekers were pitched into the sea when their people-smuggling boat from Indonesia sank on its way to Australia in 2001. Three hundred and fifty three people drowned. Only seven survivors made it to Australia. Amal Basry was one of those survivors, spending 22 hours in the ocean hanging on to a floating corpse, convinced that her son was dead and she was the only person left alive. Acclaimed documentary maker Steve Thomas records her life story as she fights to ensure that the disaster is not forgotten, to reunite her family and ‘find what it was I lost in the ocean’… Hope is an inspirational tale of family, and the search for a better life in Australia.