Movies: Dennis O'Rourke

Cunnamulla, 800 kilometres west of Brisbane, is the end of the railway line. In the months leading up to a scorching Christmas in the bush, there's a lot more going on than the annual lizard race. Here, Aboriginal and white Australians live together ...

First Contact is a 1983 documentary by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson which recounts the discovery of a flourishing native population in the interior highlands of New Guinea in 1930 in what had been thought to be an uninhabited area. It is based on ...

Before the 1970s, the Commonwealth Film Unit represented the people of PNG in a paternalistic way, as curiosities. The unit used pompous voice-overs telling viewers what they should believe. Les McLaren and Annie Stiven are two of a group of Australi...

Reveals how Australia's first people are still suffering from social oppression, with many living on reservations where alcoholism is rampant and unemployment the major occupation. Aboriginal land rights are a central theme: Miller clearly demonstrat...

Habiba and Shah who, because of the wars fought in Afghanistan over the past 25 years, have experienced immense suffering, but who have survived to show how it is possible to be brave and moral in this world of sanctioned violence and lies. Shah, a ...

ANGELS OF WAR captures the experiences of villagers who lived through the Papua New Guinea campaign. Caught up in a war they could not understand or influence, they had no choice but to obey whoever held the gun. Their homes were bombed. They starved...

The film follows a number of European and American ecotourists as they travel from village to village throughout the Sepik River area in Papua New Guinea, driving hard bargains for local handcrafted items, paying to view formerly sacred ceremonies an...

Believing that the spirits of their ancestors dwell in the mako shark, shark callers are not only hunting but also maintaining a connection with their past....

The documentary is a sort of self-portrait of O'Rourke in which he discusses 8 of his documentary films. Footage from these is interspersed with O'Rourke directly addressing the camera....

Documents Independence Day of Papua New Guinea on September 16, 1975, comparing the pageantry of local celebrations with the official ceremony in the capital. Also provides historical background about the area's 19th-century colonization by Holland, ...

A companion to Yumi yet, O’Rourke and Kildea’s Ileksen (derived from the English 'election’) documents Papua New Guinea’s first general election in 1977. The film records a broad cross-section of candidates who, without an extended media network at t...

Film maker Dennis O'Rourke documents the day to day life of Aoi, a Thai prostitute through interviews with her and her family as well as taking us through some of the tourist frequented bars and night clubs....

The people of the Bikini Atoll were removed from their homelands as a result of American testing of nuclear bombs in the Pacific. They now live on another island, dependent on American food and support. They can never go back to Bikini Atoll because ...

People whose family originated in India comprise just over half of Fiji’s population. Indians came to Fiji in colonial times under an indentured labour system to work in the sugar cane fields. Some indigenous Fijians wish to repossess the land now wo...

The film features interviews with residents of the nearby Rongelap and Utirik Atolls who were affected by nuclear fallout from the tests. Unlike in previous nuclear tests and despite the considerably more powerful nuclear explosion involved, these re...

Examining the change of culture in the small island after American television began being broadcast....