Browse Titles - 6 results
Blowin' in the Wind
A deeply disturbing film about the use and effects of DU munitions in wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and how this danger is now coming to our backyard. Blowin’ in the Wind examines the secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its weaponry on Australian soil. It looks at the impact of recycled ura...
A deeply disturbing film about the use and effects of DU munitions in wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and how this danger is now coming to our backyard. Blowin’ in the Wind examines the secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its weaponry on Australian soil. It looks at the impact of recycled uranium weapons and the far-reaching physical and moral effects on every Australian. The film’s release has been timely as the governmen...
A deeply disturbing film about the use and effects of DU munitions in wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and how this danger is now coming to our backyard. Blowin’ in the Wind examines the secret treaty that allows the US military to train and test its weaponry on Australian soil. It looks at the impact of recycled uranium weapons and the far-reaching physical and moral effects on every Australian. The film’s release has been timely as the government currently moves to approve more uranium mines while arguing the contrary – that by going nuclear we are being both ‘safe’ and ‘green’.
Blowin’ In The Wind reveals that Iraqi babies are now being born with major birth defects. Bradbury wonders whether Australians living downwind from the military testing ranges will be next. He argues that we were lied to by the British over the Woomera and Maralinga atomic tests. Can we trust another equally powerful partner in our ‘war on terror’? With a cash budget of just $12,000 Blowin’ In The Wind raises pertinent questions which cannot be ignored by the Australian public. The film shocked, angered and surprised large audiences when shown at the Sydney and Brisbane Film Festivals.
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Chile: Hasta Cuando?
Front Line
An account of the Vietnam war as seen through the camera of Australian journalist Neil Davis.His footage of the conflict was seen nightly by millions. Vietnam was a television war, a war said to have been lost in the lounge rooms of middle America. and not on the battlefield.
A multi-award winner (including an Aca...
An account of the Vietnam war as seen through the camera of Australian journalist Neil Davis.His footage of the conflict was seen nightly by millions. Vietnam was a television war, a war said to have been lost in the lounge rooms of middle America. and not on the battlefield.
A multi-award winner (including an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary) the film examines the ethical issues facing a man in the frontline who is not an active com...
An account of the Vietnam war as seen through the camera of Australian journalist Neil Davis.His footage of the conflict was seen nightly by millions. Vietnam was a television war, a war said to have been lost in the lounge rooms of middle America. and not on the battlefield.
A multi-award winner (including an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary) the film examines the ethical issues facing a man in the frontline who is not an active combatant (more than eighty newsmen were killed covering the war). Neil Davis discusses his experiences in the film and this, combined with extensive footage taken by him and others, makes for a compelling account of an Australian war correspondent. This shattering documentary on the Vietnam War has stirred audiences all over the world. Its focus is Neil Davis, a courageous, humane news-cameraman who spent eleven years in the combat zone. His close-up footage combined with his recollections are a testimony to the horrors of war. As an Australian, Davis viewed the conflict from a different perspective than an American. He spent much time with the Vietnamese troops, forming a deep attachment to the brave soldiers he lived among. Thus, Front Line shows a story, little known in this country, of Asians suffering at the hands of other Asians.
Davis was even permitted to cross enemy lines and film the other side of war, going with the Viet Cong. And he was the only Western journalist to film the fall of Saigon. It was Neil’s historic footage of the first North Vietnamese communist tank crashing through the Presidential palace in Saigon that told the world the war was finally over. The film points up the myriad ironies of the war: President Nixon announcing the war is finished, while Davis is being bombarded in a rice paddy; young American soldiers revealing their confusion when asked why they are fighting in Asia; Cambodian boy-soldiers going fishing whenever there is a lull in the deadly fighting.
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Nicaragua: No Pasaran
In 1979 the revolutionary Sandinista movement came to government after 43 years of organised resistance and the death of 50,000 Nicaraguans. They inherited a country bankrupt and with a foreign debt of US$1.5 billion. Through the central figure of leading Sandinista Tomas Borge, David Bradbury examines the past, p...
In 1979 the revolutionary Sandinista movement came to government after 43 years of organised resistance and the death of 50,000 Nicaraguans. They inherited a country bankrupt and with a foreign debt of US$1.5 billion. Through the central figure of leading Sandinista Tomas Borge, David Bradbury examines the past, present and future of this small Central American nation whose methods of survival continue to challenge the US military machine and, th...
In 1979 the revolutionary Sandinista movement came to government after 43 years of organised resistance and the death of 50,000 Nicaraguans. They inherited a country bankrupt and with a foreign debt of US$1.5 billion. Through the central figure of leading Sandinista Tomas Borge, David Bradbury examines the past, present and future of this small Central American nation whose methods of survival continue to challenge the US military machine and, through liberation theology, the Catholic Church. Australian filmmaker David Bradbury, spent six months in Nicaragua. What he experienced there, and captured on film, was the human face of a troubled revolution.
For years Nicaragua suffered under the brutal dictatorship of General Somoza. NICARAGUA: NO PASARAN describes this period of Nicaraguan history simply, and explains the extraordinary events which led to the formation and eventual coming to power of the revolutionary Sandinista movement. Ronald Reagan, President of the USA, is constantly accusing the Sandinista government of activities that threaten to destabilise the whole of Central America. One by one, the film explores the truth or otherwise of these accusations. Are the Sandinistas just puppets who dance to the tune of Moscow and Cuba? Why was the Pope shouted down by tens of thousands of angry Nicaraguans at his mass rally in Managua in 1983? Is this to be another Vietnam?
As with his previous films, Bradbury has concentrated on a central character to best illustrate the story of Nicaragua. It is Tomas Borge, Minister of the Interior in the nine-man National Directorate – the collective leadership that governs Nicaragua. Borge is the only surviving founder of the original Sandinista movement. He lived the life of a political fugitive, always on the run, for 19 years. His wife was raped, tortured and murdered by Somoza’s National Guard. He himself was tortured and spent six years in gaol. Now as Minister of the Interior, in charge of police and State security, he is at the centre of Nicaragua’s fight for survival against the US-backed contras who are attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government. It is through Borge’s charismatic personality that the history and spirit of this most unusual revolution are given voice: NICARAGUA: NO PASARAN: – Nicaragua: they will not enter.
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Public Enemy Number One
For most of his working life, controversial Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett chose to report from the “other side”. His unorthodox views and activities caused him to be labelled a traitor by many. Burchett was the first Western journalist to report on the devastating after effects of the atomic bomb drop...
For most of his working life, controversial Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett chose to report from the “other side”. His unorthodox views and activities caused him to be labelled a traitor by many. Burchett was the first Western journalist to report on the devastating after effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He believed that the West was wrong to intervene in Korea. During the Vietnam war he lived among the Viet Cong, and w...
For most of his working life, controversial Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett chose to report from the “other side”. His unorthodox views and activities caused him to be labelled a traitor by many. Burchett was the first Western journalist to report on the devastating after effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He believed that the West was wrong to intervene in Korea. During the Vietnam war he lived among the Viet Cong, and was a friend and admirer of Ho Chi Minh.
“I write this as a warning to the world.” So began the story filed at Hiroshima in August 1945 by Wilfred Burchett, the first Western journalist to witness the devastation of nuclear war. While 250 journalists were reporting on the Japanese surrender, Burchett alone realized the real story was in that doomed city, officially off limits to outsiders. World War ll was the last war that Australian Wilfred Burchett was to report from his countrymen’s side. It was his firm conviction that the West was wrong in Korea, and wrong later in Vietnam, and the stories he filed outraged the West. His long-standing friendship with Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, enabled him to live among the Vietcong. Public Enemy Number One includes footage from the Vietnamese archives rarely seen in the West.
Was Burchett a traitor as his detractors claim? There are no easy answers. Burchett insists he was exercising his journalistic responsibility in reporting the truth. The West, he felt, was getting only a distorted view of the conflict. His critics, however, felt he was abetting the enemy and even brainwashing allied prisoners. The Australian Government denied him a passport for 17 years, forcing him to live in exile. In tracing Burckett’s life and the wars he covered, Public Enemy Number One raises many issues of vital importance. Can a democracy tolerate opinions it considers subversive to its national interest? How far can freedom of the press be extended in wartime?
A gripping part of the film occurs when filmmaker Bradbury was ambushed with Burchett by Cambodian guerillas on a mountain road. In the tradition of photojournalism, Bradbury’s camera kept rolling, recording the bloody scene. Burchett escaped injury but can not escape the irony that confronted him in Cambodia. The Pol Pot regime which he had championed had turned Cambodia into a killing ground worse than Hiroshima. Had his loyalties been misplaced after all?
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War on Trial
After pedalling across the airport tarmac on a red tricycle, Bryan Law in his signature ten gallon hat and business suit had executed his mission. Seconds later, he was surrounded by military troops and security guards.
This was not the action of a crazed man, but of an educated, middle-aged teacher. Since the eig...
After pedalling across the airport tarmac on a red tricycle, Bryan Law in his signature ten gallon hat and business suit had executed his mission. Seconds later, he was surrounded by military troops and security guards.
This was not the action of a crazed man, but of an educated, middle-aged teacher. Since the eighties there have been scores of disarmament actions in the Ploughshare tradition: In the words of the Old Testament prophets Isaiah an...
After pedalling across the airport tarmac on a red tricycle, Bryan Law in his signature ten gallon hat and business suit had executed his mission. Seconds later, he was surrounded by military troops and security guards.
This was not the action of a crazed man, but of an educated, middle-aged teacher. Since the eighties there have been scores of disarmament actions in the Ploughshare tradition: In the words of the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Micah, we are called to be peacemakers to ... beat swords into ploughshares and spears into pruninghooks.
The Rocky Tiger Ploughshares action had been planned and announced in the Rockhampton Bulletin, but its execution still took the Australian Army by surprise.
A Tiger Attack helicopter was the focus of this audacious act, following the revelations of the Collateral Murder video showing innocent journalists and children being targeted in Iraq by US military gunners.
A seasoned peace activist, Bryan was well prepared for the trial, but fate intervened and he died on Easter Monday 2013 from a heart attack. However the story did not end there. Graeme Dunstan, a greying Buddhist peace pensioner, had accompanied Bryan to the action and he now faced the charges alone.
The stakes were high. Willful damage carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison. The repair bill was estimated at $162,000.
Encouraged by supporters gathered at Rockhampton for the trial, socially networked friends around the globe and a 'Mackenzie friend' in court, Graeme took up the challenge and together they put the government and the helicopter on trial.
The Ploughshares documentary shares this remarkable story of peacemaking in an era of perpetual war in the belief that ... Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
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