Roger Cowland

AT LAST, the long-lost film inspired by Australia's first rock festival - The Pilgrimage For Pop Festival - at Ourimbah, near Sydney in 1970.

A champion high school rugby player has a secret desire to be a ballet dancer, having spent 11 years in ballet school. Seizing an opportunity to audition for a local company's presentation of "Romeo and Juliet", he nonetheless fears what will happen to his reputation if the other kids in his school find out. Adding the practices to his already burgeoning schedule quickly starts to create problems with his friends, his teachers, his coach, his play director, and his ballet partner. Of course, it all comes together on the stage of the Sydney Opera House.

With his distinctive voice and unusual view of life, Harris takes us through his story: a harrowing journey of humour, grief, resolution and redemption. Harris, as a child of five, sits underneath his house amongst the cobwebs making 'sugar' by pounding sandstone rocks into fine grains and wrapping them into bags. Harris at 17 falls in love with Helen and when a tragic accident leads to a breakdown he ends up at 'The Cottage'... Thrust up against the lives of other innocent victims, Harris begins to make sense of his own guilt, grief and the secret of his past.

Babe, fresh from his victory in the sheepherding contest, returns to Farmer Hoggett's farm, but after Farmer Hoggett is injured and unable to work, Babe has to go to the big city to save the farm.

The romantic myth is exposed for Guy when he is plagued by memories of an old girlfriend on his wedding day.

Harry and his much-younger girlfriend surprise their friends one vacation weekend by announcing their desire to marry immediately. As they are visiting a small island village off the coast of west Australia, that is easier said than done.

Sixteen-year-old Mars wants more from her life than just a fistful of flies which, to her, is a fistful of nothing. Stifled and dominated by her family, Mars just wants to be free. Denied relationships with the people who truly understand her, Mars battles her family on her own, and in her quest to be treated as a grown-up she gives her mother the courage to act and forces her father to make the choice of his life. A story about how a young girl finally finds the courage to have faith in herself.

Two lovers, Nikki and Al, have a scam in which Nikki allows herself to be picked up by older men, drugs them, and, with Al's help, robs them. After accidentally killing one of her victims with an overdose, Nikki and Al are on the run.

In New South Wales, Jared surfs with his mates and has a first girl. He hosts a beach party for his older pal, Ricko, and witnesses four of his mates gang-rape a 15 year old. He does nothing, and the next day, she's found murdered. At school, the boys and the girls react: the girls with anger at the perpetrators, the boys with jeering at the dead girl's morality. The students' parents have their own responses. Jared retreats into angry silence, disgusted that he did nothing to help the dead girl. Meanwhile, his mother wants to talk to him about her impending cancer surgery, the police want to know what he saw, and his friend Ricko wants an alibi. Jared's cracking under the pressure.

An aging Hong Kong couple move to Australia with their two youngest sons. They stay with a daughter who has already begun a successful career. Meanwhile their eldest daughter lives in Germany and their eldest son remains in Hong Kong. The film explores the different ways the family members cope with isolation and alienation.

Susy Conner accuses former employer, Gary Fitzgerald, of harassment and unfair dismissal for failing to comply with his sexual demands. Relating the incident to conciliation lawyer, Marion Lee, Susy comments that the trauma experienced should entitle her to a compensation payment of $40,000.00.

Lewis, a young amateur theater director, is offered a job with a governmental program for the rehabilitation of mentally ill patients in a Sydney institution. His project is overrun by one of the patients, who wants to stage the opera Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart, despite the fact that none of the patients can sing or speak Italian. A comedy of errors ensues, but one which unifies the patients and their director in unexpected ways.

A US criminal profiler (of sorts) is sent over to Queensland to help catch a serial slayer, who leaves biblical scriptures behind at the scene of his crimes.

This movie is all about a normal guy called Billy Apples. He is a social drinker and sometimes lead singer of a band. While he is doing all of this, he still manages to bring up his teenage daughter. One night while sitting at home Billy finds that he has a talent! He finds that he is able to sing like his idol, 50's singer Billie Holiday. From there he is going places, from huge live performances to even cutting a hit record, but in the end he must make a choice between the life he has, and the life he once knew. Written by Graham Wilson Jr

A young ambulance driver befriends an elderly woman.

Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.

Inter-tribal rivalry leads to a competition to erect a huge Maoi statue in record time before Make can take part in the race to retrieve the egg of a Sooty Tern. The reward for winning this race is to rule the island for one year.

A narcotics detective, suspected of corruption, gets a transfer to the Police Rescue Squad. An unstable man holds a daycare center hostage.

When he discovers the world is about to end, a lovestruck teen makes it his mission to bed the girl he has fallen for.

Justin Thorne is a liberal arts professor. One of his college students is Jennifer Carter. She seduces Justin, then accuses him of rape. But it turns out that she has an unusual relationship with her father.

Lucy is apparently very confident, and quite "forward," as the saying used to be; she has made all the moves to pick up a staid lawyer-type for sex. Once back at her apartment, she sets a video camera going to record their coupling. However, someone breaks into the place while they are having at it, and she is barely able to leave the bed and hide before her sex-partner is killed. She never sees the intruder's face herself. In the aftermath, the terrified lass finds herself with a sympathetic female state-appointed attorney (since she's the obvious suspect) and together, they try to track down the murderer.

A struggling actress with an affinity for horses meets wealthy rock music promoter and stable owner Digby Olsen.

Wallace is an efficiency expert, managing the high-profile downsizing of a major auto parts factory. But when he is hired to evaluate a small moccasin factory which seems from another era, Wallace has to reconsider the rapid modernization he advocates, as he is confronted by the human faces such plans hurt.

Over the five days after a military coup, army troops arrive to enforce martial law and encounter a growing resistance movement.

An American tycoon goes to Melbourne where he meets a married secretary.

A young woman takes off with a charming stranger in Australia, then begins to think he's a killer.

Two freethinking teenagers - a boy and a girl - confront with authoritarian teachers in their boarding schools. The other students treat this differently.

A short film about the relationship between an Aboriginal daughter and her white mother. The daughter, now the sole carer of her dying mother, dreams of far away places, the haunted look in her eyes loaded with a sense of what could have been. Famous Aboriginal singer, Jimmy Little, sings 'Royal Telephone', evoking the presence of Christianity and its role in the assimilation of Aboriginal people. The final scene sees the daughter lying in a foetal position next to her mother, crying. Assimilation, then, can be understood as a pain experienced by both the Aboriginal daughter as well as the white mother.

The film covers the conflict between a father and his son both being musicians. The father is the leader of a band making rock-music from the 60s but his son becomes a star of techno-pop music.

On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes

In the small town of Coopers Bay, there are two high schools situated right next to each other. There’s Winchester, an all boys comprehensive and St Elizabeth’s, a girl’s only Catholic faculty. They are separated by woodland where pupils from both can meet and engage the things that attract the attention of maniac killers. It’s not surprising then that an unseen one begins murdering the youngsters as they fornicate, strangling them with a length of barbed wire before removing their eyes and burying them under the soil. Mary, the daughter of a Hollywood movie actress, becomes involved when the killer targets her and Kevin, her boyfriend. But who is this twisted psychopath and why does he want to kill all the kids?

A small town in Australia, in the late 1950s: Brownie and Lola are deeply in love. But because they are under-age, their parents are against their relationship and try to separate them.

The avenging angel of Marvel Comics fame comes brilliantly to life in this searing action-adventure thriller! Dolph Lundgren stars as Frank Castle, a veteran cop who loses his entire family to a mafia car bomb. His ex-partner believes Castle survived the blast and became the Punisher, living in the sewers and exacting vigilante violence against mob bosses throughout the city. When the populace is caught in the midst of a gang war that he caused, Castle must again emerge from the shadows and save the innocent.

The buttoned-down, superstitious Kay is attempting to lead a normal existence with her new boyfriend Louis. That’s until Sweetie, her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, returns home after an absence, exposing the rotten roots of their family and placing a strain on Kay and Louis’ relationship.

Underrated leading man Jeff Fahey carries most of the dramatic weight of the Australian Wrangler. Fahey plays a handsome, athletic businessman who vies for the hand of rancher's daughter Tushika Bergen. Our hero must not only contend with his romantic rival, a dashing but dangerous cattleman, but also with a villainous creditor who craves the land left to Bergen by her late father. By nature of its plotline and setting, Wrangler can't help but invite comparisons to the popular The Man From Snowy River. Still, the stars and director Ian Barry keep up the appearances of freshness and originality

Flesh and fantasy fill the nights of the call girls at Bambi’s, a flashy back street brothel. Join Bambi, Candy and the girls for an evening or two and find out what happens in the violent world of sex for sale. Candy is new to the business. She follows all of the rules of the house - she arrives on time, doesn’t take drugs, is polite to customers, and numb to all the men who used her. Then she meets Reg and breaks the most important rule - don’t fall in love with one of your customers. Their first encounter leaves her longing to see him again. She fantasizes about the love they share and how idyllic their life together would be. But the facts are clear. Candy is a hooker and she will never be a real part of his world … she’s one of Bambi’s girls. She has seen his life and felt his love, a brief glimpse is all she’ll ever have, KISS THE NIGHT!

The film is set in Australia, where an accidental future time traveler finds himself going back in time to change events to prevent a calamity.

Shaken by the stockmarket crash of ’87 … plus a few other distractions like attempted murder, flirtatious affairs and a lunatic, knife wielding chef … their friendship is put to the test! But, rest assured, these resilient women-of-the-world will pull through and enjoy many more entrées together at Luigi’s!

An Australian couple takes a sailing trip in the Pacific to get over the recent loss of their son. While on the open sea, they come across a sinking ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.

Albert Einstein is the son of a Tasmanian apple farmer, who discovers the secret of splitting the beer atom to put the bubbles back into beer. When Albert travels to Sydney to patent his invention he meets beatuiful French scientist Marie Curie, as well as several unscrupulous types who try to take advantage of the naive genius and his invention.

A couple move to Sydney from Melbourne, and soon become lured by the bright lights of the big city. Colin, the scriptwriter husband, is corrupted by his editor and then falls for the girlfriend of his writing partner, while Colin's wife Kate begins to lose sight of her ideals in a new world of hustlers and cynics.

In the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Australia, the most popular sport is Hard Knuckle, a bloodier form of pool. Harry is a pool hustler, wants to beat Knuckle champ Top Dog, to get his bike back.

Based on the true story of Lindy Chamberlain who, during a family camping trip to Ayers Rock in central Australia, claimed she witnessed a dingo take her baby daughter, Azaria, from their tent. Azaria's body was never found and, after investigations and two public inquests, she is charged with murder.

A schoolteacher (John Waters) becomes obsessed with the idea that his wife (Joy Bell) did not die in a car accident, as everyone else thinks.

A successful Australian writer discovers he has cancer and returns home to Melbourne to be with his estranged wife and daughter.

A game becomes deadly serious! An insane cop hunts down five students in a shopping mall after closing time. His life is ruined as he was dishonorably discharged from the police force because of these people. Armed with a Rambo knife and a crossbow, he initially only wants to scare them off, but when he accidentally injures one of the boys deadly, there is no turning back. The witnesses to the murder must be eliminated! So begins a relentless hunt through the mall at night…

The love story between an Australian woman and a Balinese dancer.

Rikky and her brother Pete struggle to keep their lives from spinning out of control in small town Australia.

A small desert town in western Australia is the scene of several love affairs in this romantic drama. Forty-year-old Stella (Wendy Hughes) works at her father's hotel and bar. She receives annual New Year's marriage proposals from rodeo rider Andy Ford (John Hargreaves), who talks himself into asking her one more time. Stella's father Billy (Norman Kaye) is a former cricket star whose career ended early when he was involved in a sex scandal. She spends the night with vacationing Arthur (Michael Siberry) when his car breaks down. Andy elects not to pop the question to Stella in lieu of her one-night stand with the stranger. When Billy elects to marry June Thompson (Julie Nihill), the local gossipmongers have a field day recalling the woman's promiscuous past.

In the distant future, the human race nears extinction and a new race of beast-like creatures rule the earth. The few surviving people live in the City, a huge protected construction with the ability to travel in both space and time. The City travels back to our time to save humanity...

Two people who have had disastrous love affairs meet on a tropical island resort.

A strange race of human-like marsupials appear suddenly in Australia, and a sociologist who studies these creatures falls in love with a female one. Is this a dangerous combination?

In pre-WWII Australia, a love triangle develops between a man, his wife and the man's brother.

In the future, a health nut and his tag-along girlfriend become trapped in a drive-in theater that has become a concentration camp for outcast youths.

A young woman running a wildlife sanctuary in the Australian outback is in for trouble when she is confronted by three kangaroo hunters. Bored with killing kangaroos, they decide to kill the animals in the sanctuary, and when they see how attractive the owner is, they decide to have a little "fun" with her, too. Turns out that they may get a bit more "fun" than they bargained for.

Teresa is a spirited young girl chafing under the oppressive attitudes of 1930s society, and her father in particular. She fancies her poverty-stricken Latin tutor Johnathan Crow, without realising he merely considers her a pleasant diversion and nothing more, and eventually follows him from Sydney to London. En route she meets the gentle banker James Quick. Whilst navigating her relationships in London, including with a political poet bound for the Spanish Civil War, she experiences a transformation in her understanding of love. Based upon Christina Stead's best-selling Australian novel.

Eve flees to Australia with daughter Chrissie when Riley, her ex-lover, resurfaces. Two IRA men hunting Riley for shooting their comrade join forces with a vengeful biker Eve wronged. All paths converge in Barossa Valley.

Sister Honour Langtree (Wendy Hughes), is in charge of a military hospital for psychiatric patients. She however transgresses boundaries by developing a sexual attraction for a new patient.

In the Australian outback a vicious wild boar kills and causes havoc to a small community.

Wealthy Peter Sterling and his younger wife Christine have an existence of little excitement so when a stranger comes into their lives, she is intrigued. An affair turns into much more and they are soon plotting to rob Peter of a precious gemstone.

Phar Lap, the big bold chestnut reigned as the king of the turf in the depression that gripped Australia of the 1930s. From his humble beginnings the New Zealand bred horse raced on to become the hero of a nation.

The plot centres on Queensland's Gold Coast in the early 1980s, when a disgraced former cop, Michael Stacey writes a book exposing police corruption, does an investigation resulting in 2 murders, exposes a religious cult and watches the army begin a military coup.

Australia 1946. A young woman escapes from an unhappy affair to become tutor to three children who are being raised by their uncle.

After discovering that a group of car thieves may have something to do with his father's untimely death, Steve pursues the criminals and attempts to capture them as well as prove his prowess as a racecar driver.

A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.

Three young friends trying to break into the entertainment business inadvertently anger a mob boss, setting in motion a chain of events that results in their being hunted by every thug and killer in town.

A cynical Australian Vietnam War veteran runs a sleazy bar in the Philippines. His old flame enters his life again asking for help when her husband, an investigative journalist, is prosecuted by the junta for discovering too much.

Sent to rescue survivors from the site of a plane crash in the South Pacific during WWII, Captain Kelly and his elite squad of Australian commandos must keep tabs on a defecting Japanese official who could hold the secret to peace.

Max Rockatansky returns as the heroic loner who drives the dusty roads of a postapocalyptic Australian Outback in an unending search for gasoline. Arrayed against him and the other scraggly defendants of a fuel-depot encampment are the bizarre warriors commanded by the charismatic Lord Humungus, a violent leader whose scruples are as barren as the surrounding landscape.

Jessica Simmonds returns from overseas to find her retired professor father in a bitter public fight to save the historic Sydney waterfront houses on Angel Street. After her father's mysterious death, she joins forces with local residents and a union leader against corrupt forces. Based on the real life mysterious disappearance of Juanita Nielsen.

Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

When a 747 crashes shortly after take-off, the sole survivor is the pilot. Virtually unhurt, he and the investigators look for the answers to the disaster. Meanwhile mysterious deaths occur in the community and only a psychic, in touch with the supernatural, can help the pilot unravel the mystery surrounding the doomed plane.

Fran, the assistant to university professor Paddy, is about to turn 30. She is having an affair with a married minister's aide, Stephen. She returns home to the country town she grew up in and has a fling with an old flame, Alan. She also begins sleeping with Paddy.

A truck driver plays a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious serial killer in a van who lures young female hitchhiker victims on a desolate Australian highway.

The 10-year-old Hubert Finn, known as "Fatty", lived in poor conditions in Australia in the 1930s. He and his friends stick together as they often have to defend themselves against the villain Bomer and his gang. Fatty wants a detector radio, but can't afford it. He has to raise money for it within a week, otherwise he won't get the radio ...

A young girl with a background of urban poverty and juvenile crime, attempts to become a fashion model. The hypocrisy and double standards of society are juxtaposed against the confusion and frustration she feels as she struggles to become part of a community that has no place for her.

Up-and-coming senator Nick Rast's young son is terminally ill with leukemia. A mysterious faith healer, Gregory Wolfe, appears and seems to cure the boy. Rast's wife Sandy falls in love with Wolfe, but the powerful interests behind Rast's career, represented by geriatric monster Doc Wheelan are less happy with events.

A young woman who is determined to maintain her independence finds herself at odds with her family who wants her to tame her wild side and get married.

When a suburban couple goes camping for the weekend at a remote beach, they discover that nature isn't in an accommodating mood.

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

Australia, 1953. Thirteen-year-old Tom Allen attends a strict Catholic seminary for boys administered by De La Salle Brothers. The adolescent students and their adult instructors struggle deeply with sexual repression and religious doubt.

In the 1870s, the colonial administrator hires bounty hunter Palmer and gun salesman Ben to wipe out an army of Irish Catholic revolutionaries in their stronghold. Palmer and Ben recruit three gun men to help them and their mission is successful but when they go to get their payment they are trapped by treacherous officials. Ben and Palmer must fight their way to safety.

A scientist on a secluded island uses revolutionary brain surgery to revive his dead wife.

Sydney homicide detective Sergeant Scobie Malone and his offsider investigate the murder of Helga, whose corpse is found in the basement of the Sydney Opera House.

Lalai Dreamtime takes the viewer into pre-settled Australia to show a myth from the spiritual tradition of the people. It is the story of Namarali, as presented by Sam Woolagoodja to his son Stanley and his granddaughter Kerry. Namarali is the law-giving 'Wandjina' of the Worora people who, along with him, have many other such Wandjinas. The 'Wandjinas' are ancient creators whose presence is real in the painted imprints of cave walls and in the shape of specific land formations. The film shows the importance of the Dreamtime in the Aboriginal culture.