AustLit

'99.9 RAW FM is the story of a community radio station that gets a licence to broadcast for a week, then for a further 90 days and then becomes a success. A phenomenal, unstoppable, ratings blitz smash.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 28/11/2013)

A young English girl, Penelope Townes, finds an opal pendant in her attic and, in playing with it, releases two Australian genies (father Bruce and son Baz). When Penelope inherits a property in Australia, the genies are delighted to be able to return home. But they are still under Penelope's control and subject to her whims–a situation complicated by Penelope's neighbour, Otto von Meister, insisting that the opal is really his by rights and by Bruce falling in love with Penelope's mother, Lady Diana.

'Harry Dare (John Moore) is a shambolic Adelaide private investigator. He’s still not certain why he’s in the business; perhaps to understand his father’s disappearance, 20 years earlier? But now Harry’s got a real case: who stole his father’s old Kombi van, nicked (oddly) just after Harry finished restoring it?

'Director Vellis’s detective yarn both delights in the idea of a Kaurna Aboriginal man making ends meet as a private eye and in how Harry’s crime-solving smarts seem to grow directly from his resilience as an Indigenous Australian.'

Source: National Film and Sound Archive.

On the cold and inhospitable planet of Zyrgon in a galaxy light years away, X's father wins the state lottery for the 27th time in a row. Knowing he will now be severely punished, twelve-year-old X is determined to save her family from jail, and decides to buy a spaceship. The whole family then set off into space, head halfway across the galaxy, and turn left. They land on an even stranger planet: Earth.

Released the same year as Death in Brunswick, with which it is often compared, Nirvana Street Murder is a tragi-comedy which similarly deals with the issues of multi-cultural relationships, inner-city life, romance and being on the wrong side of the law.

The narrative follows Luke and Boady O'Hagan, brothers who live together in a seedy section of Melbourne. While in all respects a model citizen, Luke's clandestine romance with a Greek-Australian teacher is seemingly his only act of defiance. Her conservative and traditional parents would be horrified to know that she was seriously considering marriage to a non-Greek. Boady, on the other hand, deals in drugs and likes to live on the edge. When one of his deals goes wrong, all three of them, along with Boady's pregnant girlfriend, are forced into hiding.

'When Kostas Stephanidis came to this country 23 years ago with 20 pounds in his pocket, one suitcase and his father's pants, he opened a small Greek café, Acropolis, where old men played cards and drank coffee. Now he has decided to retreat to an idyllic lifestyle in the Greek islands, leaving his one and only son, Jim, to uphold the café and family tradition. After careful thought, however, rather than entrust his beloved Acropolis café to his only son, Jim, Kostas insists on putting someone more sensible in charge. Jim's pal, Ricky, he has brains - he's been a college student! Amid cultures clashing - and crockery smashing - Jim and Ricky generate riches all right. But strictly in the form of laughs. The key writers of "Acropolis Now" are also in the cast. Nick Giannopolis, George Kapiniaris and Simon Palomares. The unique trio who were responsible for having staged Australia's longest running stage comedy, "Wogs Out Of Work".'

Source: http://www.australiantelevision.net/acropolis_now/index.html Sighted 04/07/12