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This elegant film uses the natural world to wrap an ancient context around contemporary politics and the former Australian Greens leader’s drive to save the environment

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There’s a double meaning in the title of Laurence Billiet and Rachael Antony’s new documentary: Australia’s giants of ecological activism – one in particular, the former Greens leader Bob Brown – and the kind that are made of wood and rooted in the ground. The film opens with vision from Tasmania’s Styx valley of Eucalyptus regnans, the tallest flowering plants on Earth. These trees are, as Brown puts it, “bigger than any of the dinosaurs … bigger than the blue whales” and “rooted in Australian soil”. The camera ascends next to one, climbing and climbing, reaching towards the heavens, as if comprehending its awesomeness.

This pairing of such majestic images with Brown’s commentary introduces...

Indonesian thriller ‘Autobiography’ and Mexican documentary ‘Sanson And Me’ among line-up.

Australia’s Adelaide Film Festival (Oct 19-30) has unveiled its first line-up since shifting from a biennial to an annual event, including 12 titles in competition.

This year’s event comprises 129 films, of which 22 world premieres, from more than 40 countries.

The competition features include Indonesian thriller Autobiography, which scooped a Fipresci prize at the weekend after playing in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival. The debut feature of film critic-turned-director Makbul Mubarak is about a young man who keeps house for a retired general, finding himself torn between...

Nominations for this year’s Australian Directors’ Guild (Adg) Awards are shared amongst the likes of Wayne Blair, Shannon Murphy, Daniel Nettheim, Tennika Smith, and Jonathan Brough, who have all scored two nods each.

Murphy is one of two women included in the category for Best Direction in a Feature Film for Babyteeth, joining Unjoo Moon (I Am Woman) in a field that also includes Seth Larney (2067), Maziar Lahooti (Below), and Robert Connolly (The Dry).

She also gets the nod for Best Direction in a TV or SVOD Drama Series episode for Killing Eve, where she will compete against fellow double nominee Nettheim, who features for Halifax: Retribution (Series 1 Episode 7), and is also up for Best Direction in a TV or SVOD Miniseries Episode for Line of Duty (Series 6 Episode 1).

Blair is up for Best Direction in a Feature Documentary with co-director Nel Minchin for Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra,...

Pursekey Productions director and principal producer Michaela Perske is the Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) Stanley Hawes Award recipient for 2021.

Perske’s recognition was announced today alongside the 20 nominees for the inaugural Aidc awards.

Designed to recognise the “outstanding completed works of new Australian documentary and factual content”, the awards will be presented in person across eight cities, as well as livestreamed to Aidc delegates.

Originally trained as a journalist, Perske has over 20 years of media experience across radio, print and TV.

Since turning her hand to factual content, she has produced films including Girls Can’t Surf, Black Divaz, After the Apology, and Destination Arnold.

In announcing the award, the Aidc said it wanted to acknowledge “her outstanding contribution to the Australian documentary and factual sector”.

Australian practitioners had the opportunity to submit across six categories for the Aidc Awards: Best Feature Documentary, with a $5,000 cash prize presented by Doc...

Lonely Planet Television’s Executive Producer Tony Jackson has left the company to create Chemical Media.

The news follows Lonely Planet’s purchase by BBC Worldwide and all television production moving in-house with the BBC.

As Lonely Planet Television, the production team worked on programs across BBC, Sbs, Nat Geo, Eurosport and Discovery networks as well as Going Bush with Cathy Freeman and Deborah Mailman for the ABC.

Chemical Media, with former Lonely Planet Television colleagues Joany Sze and David Collins as producer and development producer respectively, will work in cross media programming covering documentary, lifestyle and factual coverage.

In a farewell letter to the Lonely Planet staff, Jackson said “I came into the Lonely Planet office flush from the success of a British TV series I’d just produced. I met Laurence Billiet and we discussed working on the first ever TV show to be produced in house by Lonely Planet Television.