Karen Johnson

Revealed: Otto By Otto

Inspired to make an original, intimate family portrait, Gracie Otto directs a feature length documentary on her father, Barry Otto, whose career in Australian theatre, film and television has spanned more than 50 years. Baz as he is affectionately known is one of a kind - a truly creative, endearing and extremely eccentric personality who embraces the serious and the silly. This story is about Gracie's relationship with her father, in the twilight of his career and his life, as she tries to capture his memories, before his memory disappears. This is not a traditional biopic, but a deeply personal, artistic and cinematic reflection. Sometimes poignant in its exploration of deteriorating health, the film looks at the world through Baz's eyes, an ode to living a passionate life, that both honours him and preserves his memory.

Revealed: Otto By Otto

Inspired to make an original, intimate family portrait, Gracie Otto directs a feature length documentary on her father, Barry Otto, whose career in Australian theatre, film and television has spanned more than 50 years. Baz as he is affectionately known is one of a kind - a truly creative, endearing and extremely eccentric personality who embraces the serious and the silly. This story is about Gracie's relationship with her father, in the twilight of his career and his life, as she tries to capture his memories, before his memory disappears. This is not a traditional biopic, but a deeply personal, artistic and cinematic reflection. Sometimes poignant in its exploration of deteriorating health, the film looks at the world through Baz's eyes, an ode to living a passionate life, that both honours him and preserves his memory.

Rachel's Farm

Award-winning film director and actress Rachel Ward is the last person you’d expect to join a farming revolution. Following the birth of her first grandchild, Rachel is confronted head-on by the impact of our climate crisis as Australia’s Black Summer fires descend on her farm. Besieged by drought and ecological despair, Rachel finds hope in the soil beneath her feet and embarks on a journey of discovery to regenerate the land on her farm, and herself.

Ithaka

The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an elderly man’s fight to save his son. Arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a figure pretty much everybody has an opinion about; perhaps more importantly, he serves as the emblem of an international arm wrestle over freedom of journalism, government corruption and unpunished war crimes. For his family members who face the prospect of losing him forever to the abyss of the US justice system, however, this David-and-Goliath struggle is personal – and, with his health declining in a British maximum-security prison and American government prosecutors pulling out all the stops to extradite him, the clock is ticking.

Under the Volcano

The story of George Martin’s AIR Studios Montserrat and the island that changed music forever.

Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra

Taking us through Bangarra Dance Theatre’s spectacular growth, we follow the story of how three young Aboriginal brothers — Stephen, David and Russell Page — turned the newly born dance group into a First Nations cultural powerhouse.

Ties That Bind

Delivered home by police, 17 year-old Thomas has to front his domineering mother Marlene who isn’t interested in his side of the story. Forced outside as punishment, Thomas is left with hurt and frustrations, until neighbourly sounds enter his conscious world echoing a connection to the present and the past, Thomas is triggered to make a life changing decision.

She Who Must Be Loved

A documentary that tells the epic life story of Alfreda Glynn, 78-year-old Aboriginal woman, stills photographer, co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), and Imparja TV, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, radical, pacifist, grumpy old woman, who in equal measure loves the limelight and total privacy. Part bio-pic, part social history, it details the life of a woman born beneath a tree north of Alice Springs in 1939, her childhood living under the Aboriginal Protection policies and the impact, both good and bad they had on her life.

Ghosthunter

In Sydney, Australia, Jason King, a security guard and a part-time ghost hunter, has spent decades searching for his absent father. When this personal endeavor crosses paths with a police investigation, an unspeakable family secret comes to light.

Miro

When Miro returns home at the end of World War II he finds his land taken, his people gone, his daughter stolen and his service record treated with contempt. But the battlefield has taught him how to fight and he sets out to reunite his family waging his own form of justice.

The Sunnyboy

Following the Sunnyboys’ enigmatic frontman Jeremy Oxley from the band’s origins, breakthrough success and his subsequent 30-year battle with schizophrenia, The Sunnyboy is one man's inspired story of survival and hope. A meditation on a condition often stigmatised and misunderstood, Kaye Harrison’s documentary buries below the surface of Oxley’s public “identity” to explore his own reality and battle to maintain “self”. Secure in a loving relationship with his partner Mary, Oxley slowly emerges from his solitary torment to join the world we all share. The film follows him as he tentatively unpicks his confused thoughts and feelings about the past with his brother Peter. From his struggle with the physical effects of years spent self-medicating to his hopeful contemplation of a married future and a daring return to the stage, The Sunnyboy is the definitive documentary of Jeremy Oxley's journey from the Sunnyboys and back.

Blackbuster

Rowdy punters at this kooky Queensland pub stir an unusual awakening in pirated DVD dealer, Kainen. As his crush grows for the publican's daughter, Tanika, his uncontrollable imagination takes us on a genre-bending roller coaster fantasy ride like no other! Beware of the unleashed (and hopelessly romantic) beast!

Griff the Invisible

Griff, office worker by day, superhero by night, has his world turned upside down when he meets Melody, a beautiful young scientist who shares his passion for the impossible.

Lost Things

Four teenagers; Gary (Leon Ford), Brad (Chalie Garber), Emily (Lenka Kripac) and Tracey (Alex Vaughan) travel to a desert paradisiacal beach and spend the weekend together. When they arrive, they meet the older Zippo (Steve Le Marquand), and experience a sense of Déjà vu with weird events, feeling that they had previously been in that place. That Saturday, they start to realize that they are actually trapped in a nightmare.

Cold Turkey

Two brothers and their journey into a long night of desperate living in Alice Springs.

Beneath Clouds

The story of Lena, the light-skinned daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn, a Murri boy doing time in a minimum security prison in North West NSW. Dramatic events throw them together on a journey with no money and no transport. To Lena, Vaughn represents the life she is running away from. To Vaughn, Lena embodies the society that has rejected him. And for a very short amount of time, they experience a rare true happiness together.

Wind

Australia, 1867. In the bleak high country, a young black tracker and his elderly sergeant follow the trail of a killer, a traditional Indigenous man.

Wind

Australia, 1867. In the bleak high country, a young black tracker and his elderly sergeant follow the trail of a killer, a traditional Indigenous man.

The Young Nurses

Sexy young nurses apply special therapy in their daily rounds, as they work against a drug ring operating out of the hospital