By FilmInk Staff
MY MOTHER THE ACTION STAR
This doco pulls back the curtain on a truly unsung powerhouse of Australian cinema: Western Sydney-based actor, martial artist and director Maria Tran, an action star in Asia who has worked with high profile players like Jackie Chan and Roger Corman. This doco introduces Australia to one of its few cinematic action heroes.
POWER OF ACTIVISM
This cinematic call to arms looks at six extraordinary female environmental activists whose ideas and endeavours could not just aid the fight against climate change but also save the taxpayer millions.
SCATTERED PEOPLE
Featuring interviews with big names like Missy Higgins, Michael Franti, John Butler, Archie Roach, Katie Noonan, Dan Sultan, Harry James Angus and Robbie James, Scattered People showcases the power of music to heal and unite disparate, in this case in an immigrant detention centre.
THE TUNNEL: THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS
This compelling behind the scenes filmmaking doco looks at both the making of the low budget 2011 Australian horror film The Tunnel, and also at the effect that the film’s unconventional production model has had on the local film scene.
ENOUGH! LEBANON’S DARKEST HOUR
Seen through the eyes of Lebanese-Australian journalist and filmmaker, Daizy Gedeon, this searing documentary digs into the political and social tinderbox that is modern Lebanon, with the notorious Beirut Port explosion of 2020 as its dramatic strike-point.
CATS OF MALTA
A true heart-warmer, Cats Of Malta celebrates the stray felines of the Mediterranean island, and the wide variety of people who help them survive through shows of unconditional love and support.
FREEDOM STREET
This quietly powerful and deeply political work puts Australia’s often cruel, incomprehensible and divisive border control policies under the microscope by telling the story of three refugees trapped in Indonesia.
DIESELN’DUB
Thirty years after the legendary Midnight Oil released their ground-breaking album Diesel And Dust, Australian musician Declan Kelly brings together a diverse roster of musical artists to reinvent the Oils’ iconic songs in dub-reggae style.
PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES: THE MAVIS BRAMSTON SHOW
Airing from 1965-1968, The Mavis Bramston Show was one of the earliest and most influential comedy variety programmes in Australian television history. Boasting interviews and archival footage, this doco captures the show’s history and legacy.
WHO WOULD YOU TELL?
A staggering tale of innocence stolen and corrupted, Who Would You Tell? is the heartbreaking story of three brothers from Malta who were separated from their destitute family at a young age and sent to Tardun in Western Australia under the child migration scheme.
REMEMBER BELSEN
Directed by veteran Aussie filmmaker Frank Shields (Hostage, The Breaker), this doco looks at the liberation of the notorious Nazi Death Camp Belsen, partially through the eyes of an Australian war artist who was the first to record the horrors of Belsen with his art.
A FIRE INSIDE
The horrific bushfires that raged through Australia in 2019 birthed a wide array of stories, some defined by tragedy and pain and others by true heroism and humanity – this doco looks at the efforts of those who helped those in need.
NO BAD GUYS
Directed by the utterly essential George Gittoes (Rampage, Soundtrack To War), No Bad Guys looks at the modern horrors of Southside Chicago, an urban nightmare of gun violence, murder, gang warfare and broken families.
PAPER CITY
A quiet meditation on forgiveness and accountability, Paper City follows the remaining survivors of America’s devastating 1945 airstrike on Tokyo, who are campaigning for a public memorial to acknowledge the tragic loss of civilian life.
ANGEL
This intimate, in-depth look at India Angel’s songwriting process and celebrated debut single “Move On” reveals the emotional and vulnerable road from pen and paper to commercial success.
MAKING WONDER
Making Wonder follows Melbourne based singer/songwriter Stephen Grady into the studio at the start of the 2020 pandemic as he attempts to record his latest full length album in just three days.
PATOU: IN BLACK IN WHITE
With a career that spans over four decades and across the globe, Jamaican singer Pat Powell (Patou) is one of Australia’s most accomplished yet hidden vocal talents. This doco looks at his career, and also at how race has defined his life in Australia.
AUSTRALIA MY HOME: AN ALBANIAN MIGRATION
This film depicts the stories of three generations of Albanian migrants to Australia, their sacrifices and contribution towards their adopted country, as well as the strength of our cultural identity in the face of longing and separation.
STITCHED TOGETHER
In a small town outside Melbourne, a community of unlikely activists fight climate change with their sewing machines – making reusable bags out of recycled fabrics.
RIDE
This is a portrait piece on passionate and quirky bike mechanic, Ian Downing, who has been riding bikes and working on them since the 1970s, and continues to do it with relentless passion today.
LIKE WATER
Detailing Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, Like Water is a “recycled cinema” essay drawing on archival footage found on YouTube and archive.org with artwork courtesy of Badiucao.
TEDDY
Teddy was just 7 years old in 1974 when his mother, Aunty Jan Chessells, a prominent member of the Aboriginal community, moved herself and her four boys to Brunswick, making them the first indigenous family in the suburb. This is Teddy’s story.
GONE WITH THE WING
Renowned adventure filmmakers Safari Productions and cinematographer Hamish Pattison capture Andrew Englisch’s world first attempt to cross the treacherous Bass Strait on his Wing Foil.
PHOSPHENES
Phosphenes exposes the porous nature of the body’s boundaries, exploring how we come to “see” our body through the eyes and touch of another. Using the eyes like hands, bodies loom too close to the camera, becoming subsumed by colour and disappearing into disjointedness.
YEAH ROY! SKATING, SQUATTING, AND MUSIC IN MELBOURNE
In 2012, a group of skaters and BMX riders from Fitzroy transformed a derelict inner city building into a space for art, punk gigs, skating and riding. After getting kicked out by the owners, Aladdin, one of the skaters, searched Melbourne for new abandoned spaces to continue living his dream.
THE DAVID SCOTT STORY
Melbourne activist David Scott spent a lifetime fighting poverty, was a pioneering advocate for East Timor, and created an enduring legacy in social justice and environmental reform. Through the recollections of people who knew him, this gentle, reflective story unpacks David Scott’s life.
UNKNOWN MELBOURNE
Unknown Melbourne is a YouTube documentary series hosted by award-winning educator and designer Julian O’Shea, exploring and explaining the hidden side of the city.
TINNING STREET
The lived experience of asylum seekers and refugees during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdowns, shared in their own words, and the efforts of a small team of social workers seeking to unburden an already vulnerable community now left behind.
MAGICAL CROW
A poet’s story of his upbringing and troubled relationship with his mother is set against fragmented imagery and one of the poet’s written works, The Magical Crow.
THE SANCTUARY
Recounting his love of the water, Ray Lewis, OAM, snorkels among the vibrant sea life of the marine sanctuary that he has helped to protect.
WHERE THE WATER STARTS
Where The Water Starts reveals how a variety of environmental challenges in The Australian Alps are seen by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who were born or live in the southern mountains area, or who care deeply about it.
WALLACE
Wallace explores a hypothetical final day of his life as he comes into terms with death whilst obtaining closure from his loved ones.
FLIGHT OF THE HONEYSUCKER
Flight Of The Helmeted Honeyeater is a documentary focussing on this critically endangered bird and the volunteers giving up their time to save this Victorian treasure.
ANIMAL REQUIEM
Inspired to amplify the urgent call-to-action by climate activists, a small group of makers set their minds to creating an artwork that could not be ignored. The result is an extraordinary 4-metre tall Burning Koala animatronic puppet. This short film captures the koala’s maiden outing.
INDIA’S NEW GAME
Australian Rules football is taking off in in India, and this doco follows the first ever Indian team to compete on home soil in an Australian Rules match.
VANITAS
Vanitas is a son’s belated eulogy to his long-dead Anglo-Indian father whose modest aspirations were crushed by bad luck, ill-health and racism.
I’LL STAND WITH YOU
A short film dedicated to taking a stance against racism in sport.
BABA
“Baba”, which means “Dad” in Arabic, tells the heart-warming story of Mohamad Abbas Dirani, a Lebanese-Australian immigrant, and his ambitions as a young shepherd.
A TOUGH GIG
A short documentary about Megan- a Mental Health nurse who describes the daily violence she experiences working in a mental health unit and her resulting Chronic Fatigue.
THE MV PORTLAND
This documentary tells the story of the MV Portland. It’s about Australian seafarers, safest in the world, being replaced by foreign crew at $2.20 per hour. It’s pure corporate greed trying to smash the workers. It’s about workers fighting back and why they stood up for their rights “and every Aussie battler out there
COMPLETE
Aparicio Leon showed up to work one day only to be taken away to be put in prison, leaving his family questioning where he had disappeared to and if he was even still alive. He reflects on his journey of survival through Chile in 1970 and what the conditions were like after he was released from jail. How did the Leon family survive and immigrate Australia
RUBY
Ruby moved to Melbourne to start living the life she wanted to lead, but her family back home has other plans. Marriage in her culture is a family affair where everyone is involved.
POLENTA
A family gathers around the dinner table to share a traditional meal of polenta. Originally a peasantry dish passed down through family lines, the serving of polenta provides a space for communal gathering and intergenerational connection.
LIVING STRUCTURES – THE ARCHITECTURE FOR LIFE
This documentary film provides a thought-provoking narrative questioning the current state of our built environment, challenging the status quo to consider how we need to include the structures of nature to create places of belonging.
INFERNO
When dry lightning ignites a destructive bushfire atop of Mount Canobolas threatening 156 houses and vital multi-million-dollar infrastructure, 120 volunteer firefighters deploy to stop the blaze before devastation consumes their entire community.
TELEVISION EVENT
Digging curiously back into not-so-distant history, this doco looks at the creation, impact and legacy of Nicholas Meyer’s incendiary 1983 television movie The Day After, which dealt horrifically with the threat of nuclear war, and forced a worldwide conversation about what could be done to prevent it.
MY FIGHT
Bebi Zekirovski’s My Fight is a documentary portrait of young Australian Mitchell Bath, who spiralled down into the terrifying world of drug addiction after a life filled with pain and bullying, only to rise again via the life-changing sport of boxing.
A CERTAIN MOTHER
Mothers are the very backbone of not just the country, but quite possibly the entire world. But how do you define a good mum? This reasoned doco sensibly doesn’t try, but simply introduces audiences to four very different mothers from four very different parts of Australia, and allows us to watch them navigate the difficult day-to-day of raising a child.
THE LAND SPEAKS
The Land Speaks focuses on a group of friends unpacking their feelings of personal, environmental, creative, cultural and familial connection evoked from their land in Toora, South Gippsland which they have been returning to a state of biodiversity for the past 20 years.
LIVING IN THE TIME OF DYING
Living in The Time of Dying is an unflinching look at what it means to be living in the midst of climate catastrophe and finding purpose and meaning within it.
GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK
Green Is The New Black is a story of passion and purpose behind an ambitious environmental feat of one of Australia’s leading heavy music acts, In Hearts Wake.
LEIGH
Tracking the life of Australian chainsaw artist Leigh Conkie, Leigh is a portrait of a man who has used his experiences of abuse, destruction and loss to craft a life of service, connection and meaning.
TICKETYBOO
After losing her artist-father to Alzheimer’s, journalist Renée Brack confronts her own fears by undergoing medical experiments as a human lab rat, risking her career & dignity to find out if she too has early signs of the disease. While on this precarious journey with devastating revelations, she discovers wonderful ways to stay connected to people we love living with dementia.
MEMORIES THAT MAKE US
Memories That Make Us is a poetic, ethnographic documentary that draws on the individual and collective memories of ordinary Italian migrants who made Victoria, Australia their home after the end of the Second World War.
THE HEALING
The Healing is an inspiring documentary about transformation and getting a second chance in life. It explores a life-saving equine welfare program that brings traumatised ex-racehorses and traumatised military veterans together to help heal each other.
CUBA MY SOUL
Some twenty years after The Buena Vista Social Club, traditional Cuban music lives on, but it’s facing a threat from foreign styles and a disinterested youth.
The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival runs from July 1-31 (online) and July 21-31 in-cinema. For all ticketing, session and programming details, click here.
