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Sex, Drugs and String Quartets. by Thackrah, Carla,film director.; Ronin Films (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Originally produced by Ronin Films in 2003.The Landau String Quartet comes together to rehearse. Each player has travelled a very different path to become a musician. In this dramatised documentary, the musicians reveal the story of that journey. In their own words, they talk of abusive teachers, loss of innocence, seductions, fear and attempts to escape the pressure of discipline. The filmmaker, Carla Thackrah, herself a professional musician, comments: “I’ve always been fascinated by the strong psychological correspondence between a musicians’ self-definition and their instrument. This film is essentially a dramatised documentary around this theme.”Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Arts.; Social sciences.; Music.; Psychology.; Documentary films.; Artists.;
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Stepping Out. by Noonan, Chris,film director.; Ronin Films (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Originally produced by Ronin Films in 1981.From Chris Noonan (director of Babe), one of the most honoured and distinguished documentaries in Australian film history. This superior 4K digital version, restored from original film negatives was supervised by Chris Noonan. In November 1979, forty extraordinary people took to the stage. Labelled by society as mentally handicapped, isolated and hidden away in institutions since early childhood, they came to the Sydney Opera House and gave a performance that held audiences spellbound. STEPPING OUT tells the joyous story of that event, focusing especially on two members of the group: 31 year old Chris Dobbin, a dancer of extraordinary talent, and his girlfriend Romayne Grace, 21, who provides the film's commentary. Chosen by UNESCO for screening at the official closing ceremony for International Year of Disabled Persons, Paris 1981.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Performing arts.; Arts.; Social sciences.; Australians.; Foreign study.; Sociology.; Documentary films.; Artists.; Current affairs.; Health.;
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Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us. by O'Leary, Clare,film director.; Giles, Glenis,film director.; Ronin Films (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Originally produced by Ronin Films in 2022.Geoff Dixon’s art reflects his vision for our future unless we take immediate action – he was working as a conservationist long before the word became part of our everyday vocabulary. His paintings are rich with colour, commentary, and a challenge to all of us to wake up and think about the future of our wildlife, our flora and fauna, our country and our planet. New Zealand-born and now living and working in Australia, in north Queensland, Geoff grew up and found/discovered his sexuality in the conservative Christchurch of the early seventies. The film introduces us to the people who influenced him and who believed in him over the years. We find out about his travels, his ups and downs, what led to his strong sense of the environment and why the symbols of bird life have come to inhabit his paintings. Geoff’s work celebrates the birds we have around us, as well as those that are on the verge of extinction in Australasia, and reflects on the state of our ecology. He says that the paintings are, at the same time, ‘portraits of us’. The film also explores his close relationship over many years with the late Australian Indigenous artist, Arone Meeks.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Art.; Arts.; Science.; Australians.; Foreign study.; Zoology.; Documentary films.; Artists.;
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Tupaia’s Endeavour. by Rolls, Lala,film director.; Ronin Films (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Originally produced by Ronin Films in 2020.A first contact story, told from a Pacific point of view. When James Cook, captain of the British ship Endeavour, took his first steps on the un-colonised shores of Aotearoa/New Zealand in 1769, he set in train a violent collision with the existing Māori occupants. The first meeting between Māori and Europeans would have ended disastrously for Cook and his crew, if not for Tupaia, a Polynesian who had joined the Endeavour expedition in Tahiti. Who was Tupaia - this high-priest, star-navigator, and extraordinary artist? He is left out of European history books, yet today his imprint lives on in modern Aotearoa/New Zealand. New Zealand-born artist Michel Tuffery (who is of Samoan/Rarotongan/Tahitian heritage) and Māori actor Kirk Torrance, with scholars and Māori tangata whenua (people of the land) alongside them, retrace the footsteps of Tupaia in true Polynesian style. Under the gaze of their ancestors, with song, haka and humour, they make startling new discoveries that rewrite history, cementing Tupaia’s role as a central figure in Pacific history.TUPAIA'S ENDEAVOUR was shot in Tahiti, Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK over eight years with each shoot unveiling new revelations and with Michel, Kirk and the whole film crew embodying the story physically, spiritually and emotionally. Backed with the Endeavour journals and the historical rigour of renowned anthropologist, historian and writer, Dame Anne Salmond, and in collaboration with Prof. Paul Tapsell (of the iwi Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa), it is a project that gathered research from the ground up, allowing Indigenous knowledge to lead in the creation of a compelling work, both as a film and as an educational resource.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Social sciences.; Anthropology.; Documentary films.; History.; Aboriginal Australians.;
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Death in the City. by Ghosh, Balaka,film director.; Ronin Films (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Originally produced by Ronin Films in 2022.The sacred city of Varanasi, situated on the holy Ganges, ‘the river of life’, is the revered destination for death for Hindus since time immemorial. With legendary funeral pyres burning non-stop for over three millennia on the river bank, the city’s status is founded on the belief that dying in Varanasi breaks the repeated cycle of rebirth. Filmed across four years, 2018 - 2021, DEATH IN THE CITY is an intimate portrayal of ‘The City of Life and Death’, the myriad communities who live and work in its ancient streets; including those waiting to die or those working with the dead, along with rare access to the death-worshipping Aghori Saints. This is a film in three movements: the spiritual, the metaphysical and the experiential. The most pressured crematorium in the world, Varanasi’s relationship with death is at the same time auspicious, spiritual, and industrial.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Social sciences.; Philosophy and religion.; Anthropology.; Asians.; Foreign study.; Documentary films.; Ethnicity.;
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