AustLit

A documentary with interviews by Pippa Bailey, My Grandmother's Footsteps explores the life of Bailey's grandmother Florence James, best known for co-authoring the novel Come in Spinner and for her lifelong career as a writer, editor, and literary talent scout. The film was broadcast in 1994, the year following James's death at the age of ninety.

'From the creative minds behind The Feed’s infamous Broadcast Battleground comes The Weekend Shift – a new scripted comedy pilot that follows the team behind the fictional ‘SBS Weekend News’ and their struggles with ratings, budget cuts and getting Lee Lin out of the pub and into the studio. In the grand tradition of Frontline, 30 Rock and The Larry Sanders Show, The Weekend Shift is a self-deprecating look at a B Team of dysfunctional misfits who put the ‘weak’ in Weekend News.' (Production summary)

Danger 5 began in 2012 as a six-part broad comedy series that filters World War II through the exploitative spy thrillers of the 1960s.

Centred on six operatives from various Allied powers, the program follows their attempts to stop an increasingly absurd series of Nazi plots (including, for example, the theft by dirigible of the world's national monuments in order to build an enormous statue of Hitler, or the use of dinosaurs in combat) and, as their commanding officer constantly reminds them, 'As always, kill Hitler.'

The comedy is extremely broad and both exploits and mocks the exploitative nature of 1960s' film and television, as apparent, for example, in the title of episode five: 'Fresh Meat for Hitler's Sex Kitchen'.

The program also makes interesting use of the multilingual nature of such an international team: rather than eliding this by having all characters speaking English, the program uses a multitude of languages combined with English sub-titles.

In 2013, a second series was produced, this time set in the 1980s.

Documentary.

Two young and inexperienced Australian producers, Marcus Cheong (a graduate architect) and Ken Lai (an aeronautical engineer) attempt to take their unknown musical straight to Broadway. Angels: The Musical is heavily influenced by Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and the Cirque de Soleil. During the series, the would-be producers journey from Sydney to New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, searching for the right cast and production crew.

A thirteen-part television series about the exploits of Northern Territory policeman Detective Dusty Buchanon.

The series began pre-production in 2009 and was set to be broadcast on SBS Television in late 2010.

It was cancelled in September 2011 due to lack of funds.

Source: David Knox, 'Cash-Strapped SBS Cancels Upcoming Drama series', TV Tonight blog, www.tvtonight.com.au. (Sighted 15/11/2011)

Series One of East West 101 focuses on two men whose destinies are irrevocably intertwined. Malik is driven by a hunger for justice. He was twelve when a masked gunman held up the family shop. Malik refused to hand over the money and his father was subsequently shot and injured. He later joined the police force and has been looking for the shadowy figure who pulled the trigger. When he finally finds him, Malik's belief in the justice system is challenged by a powerful desire for revenge. As he hunts down the truth, it is revealed that one of his colleagues, Crowley, had a part to play in the original investigation. Crowley is a man whose vision has been blighted by pain and prejudice. His son, Paul, was found dead of an overdose on drugs sold to him by a Lebanese dealer. When the drug dealer who sold Paul the heroin is found murdered, Internal Affairs come asking questions.

In Season Two, East West 101 expands to seven episodes as the Major Crime Squad investigate crime and murder in all quarters of multicultural Sydney. But overarching all is the quest for Detective Zane Malik to find the truth behind a car bomb attack which kills two men. The Major Crime Squad form a joint task force with the NSO (National Security Organisation) to deal with the crime. There is paranoia in the city and fallout on the Muslim community. Malik knows that in order to stop the circle of hate, he must solve the crime. Was the bomb really an act of extremists, as the media suggest, or a sophisticated killing by a career criminal? Malik doggedly pursues the truth until he, too, becomes a target. Inspector Patricia Wright questions his motives but her vision is clouded by personal issues that she wants to keep hidden from the squad. Crime has touched her own family.

Season Three : The Hero's Journey. 'In [this] third season of East West 101, the Major Crime Squad investigates a 36 million dollar robbery in Australia and its connections to the murder of 17 people in Afghanistan. Is the robbery to fund an act of terror by military trained radicals, or the work of sophisticated criminals? For Detective Zane Malik the case has savage personal and professional ramifications. Malik is obstructed in his quest to find those responsible by the interference of newcomer Detective Neil Travis. Travis has fought in Iraq and his attitude and approach to the investigation cause conflict with Malik. In the hunt for an elusive foe, ultimately both men are forced to confront what makes a man a hero, or a coward...'

(Source: East West 101, SBS website)

A six-part crime series focusing on the character Carla Cametti, a determined private detective. While she has the looks and street smarts to get what she wants, she also has a personal life that's rife with danger, from a family riddled with gangsters to her volatile relationship with Detective Luciano Gandolfi, a policeman seconded to curb Melbourne's burgeoning gangland activity.

'First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world's greatest empire.

'Over seven episodes, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history.

'The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation.' Source: www.sbs.com.au (Sighted 27/09/2008).

When Adam meets Sarah at a Powderfinger concert, he doesn't realise that he will have to contend with the jealousies of her 'special little man': Wilfred, her foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, hard-partying dog.

'Kate is on a plane taking Warren, her 18 year old Torres Strait Islander foster son, to meet Flo, his birth mother, who is gravely ill in hospital in Brisbane. Flo hasn't seen Warren since she took him to the hospital on Thursday Island when he was a toddler and the white authorities took him away. But as Warren, Flo and Kate all prepare themselves for the reunion, unbeknown to them, Kate's Brisbane based parents, Keith and Dellmay, are planning a different kind of reunion.' (Source: IMDb website)

Documentary series that ran on SBS Television.

'Lennie Cahill, an old South Sydney crim dying of cancer, is determined to make amends for a 20-year-old unsolved crime and the loss of the people, places and values of an older Sydney. Dodging Twink, a cop on the verge of retirement, he stuns the city with a series of video confessions. But exactly what do Lennie and Twink regret? Making amends is more than saying sorry.'

Source: Australian Film Commission (http://afcarchive.screenaustralia.gov.au/filmsandawards/recentfilms/cannes04/feature_126.aspx). (Sighted: 26/6/2013)

A special report on the plight of Sydney's Indigenous youth. The area in question is Redfern, Waterloo, about five kilometres from Sydney's CBD. Altercations between youth and police have been reported as well as incidences of youths rioting and hurling bricks at passing vehicles. Tougher law and order were recommended for the area. However, what was left unexamined was the predicament that most of these children are coming from. (Source: Screen Australia.)

Unfinished Business: Reconciling the Nation is a landmark in Australian television history being the first time that an Australian network had devoted a season to the stolen generations and reconciliation. The series, which showcases the work of Indigenous filmmakers, represented a huge financial investment for SBS, costing more than $1 million to produce. The genesis for the series was the growing numbers of Indigenous film makers around Australia wanting to tell their own stories. Brigit Ikin, then Manager of SBS Independent, notes in a 2000 interview with Rebecca Lancashire that SBSI received numerous proposals for films about stolen children and reconciliation over the period 1998 to 1999. 'It seemed too important to just show one or two so we started commissioning,' she said. The short films selected were subsequently screened on SBS Television between 25 May and 3 June 2000.

Deep within the cotton country way out west, a convoy of cars throw a dust trail into the dark sky. Leroy, angry with the world for hating his black skin, drives his mother and best mate to weed the back-breaking rows of the cotton fields. They are joined by two white teenagers with their own troubles. While tensions between the two groups emerge during the heat of the day, the huge dust storm will bring them together in a way none of them could have imagined.

An initiative of the Indigenous Branch of the Australian Film Commission (AFC), From Sand to Celluloid comprises six films that have been packaged and distributed by Australian Film Institute Distribution (AFID) and Film Australia. The initial conception for the series came from the Indigenous Drama Initiative, set in 1994 with the express intention of advancing the development and production of films created by Indigenous Australians and increasing their participation in all areas of the film and television industry. The first project initiated was the development and production of six ten-minute dramas for television. Expressions of interest were called for from Indigenous Australians nationally. The ten applicants chosen (from forty seven) attended a visual storytelling workshop held in Melbourne in 1995. The Initiative utilised the assistance of all the state film assistance agencies and a pre-sale from SBS with an agreement to broadcast on SBS in July 1996, as well as the full participation of Film Australia through its funding of one of the productions. Five projects were further selected to go into production, along with Sally Riley's film Fly Peewee Fly (produced by Film Australia), and were delivered to the AFC on 30 March, 1996. Indigenous Australians were employed in both cast and crew positions.

In order to encourage a wider recognition and appreciation of the work of Indigenous Australians, the AFC supported the national distribution and exhibition of the films through the Australian Film Institute Distribution (AFID). AFID distributed the films as a package under the title of From Sand to Celluloid and the films screened at twenty-four locations, from as far afield as Cooper Pedy in South Australia to Broome in Western Australia, and were attended by a total of approximately 7,200 people.

As a unified collection, the films offer more than a two-dimensional victim-oppressor approach. They challenge viewers at all levels: as fellow citizens, as parents, as observers, and as fellow members of Indigenous communities. From Sand to Celluloid challenges viewers with many uncomfortable aspects of Australia's too-recent history. These include the active discrimination practised against Indigenous people in public places such as swimming pools and cinemas in country towns around Australia and the 'stolen generation': children taken away without their parents' consent and placed into homes or in white foster homes, with devastating effect on them and their families. The series is an essential resource for Indigenous studies, Australian history film studies, English legal studies, human relationship courses, and social studies.

[Source: Australian Film Commission, http://www.afc.gov.au/archive/annrep/ar95_96/indig.html]