Ronin Films (Firm)

A refugee of the Sudanese civil war, Zacharia (one of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan), lives in Sydney with his wife and daughter. He desperately wants to do something for his former village, now in the newly created nation of South Sudan. His dream is to build a much-needed school, and he enlists the backing of numerous Australians who help him to raise funds, but his ambitious plans are challenged when life intervenes.. Official Selection at the Melbourne...

Freedom Stories is an exploration by filmmaker Steve Thomas of the achievements and struggles of former ‘boat people’. Now Australian citizens, they arrived seeking asylum from the Middle-East around 2001 – a watershed year in Australian politics sparked by the Tampa affair and Prime Minister John Howard’s declaration: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.. Some were only children when they...

An important and provocative film suitable for Holocaust Studies, One Last Chance was filmed in Lithuania, Israel and Australia. This documentary produced in 2000 explores the Australian governmentʼs handling of allegations that a South Australian resident, Antanas Gudelis, was a war criminal and Nazi supporter, wanted for trial in Lithuania for leading a “death squad” which executed some 7,000 Lithuanian Jews and Communists during World War...

This short drama by Darlene Johnson (director of The Redfern Story, Crocodile Dreaming, Gulpilil: One Red Blood and Stolen Generations) is a moving and powerful portrait of a young woman trapped in a cycle of violence, hopelessness and despair. She meets a mystery mentor who could change everything..."A searing portrait of one young woman’s attempt to reconcile past and present as we walk the tightrope of her self-destructive emotions."- Phillip...

“No one from any government has ever known our language. … How can they know us?”. - David Gulpilil. Another Country is a documentary which considers, from the inside, the ramifications of one culture being dominated by another.. At the beginning of last century the Australian Government, along with entrepreneurs, opportunists and do-gooders, made a concerted effort to gain control of the lands of the Yolngu people across northern Arnhem Land,...

When an Australian garbage collector, Stuart Harris, takes a photo of a tiny colourful spider, he has no idea how it will change his life. An epic three-year quest follows in which Stuart discovers much more than just a spider unknown to science. A remarkable story of determination, self-discovery and the power of citizen science to reveal nature’s most extraordinary and well hidden wonders.

Filmmaker Edoardo Crismani and his mother Barbara embark on a search to unravel the mystery surrounding Barbara’s father, Joe Murray, an indigenous boxing champion known as “The Black Panther” who danced and sang in vaudeville shows, and married a blue-eyed blonde white woman in 1930's Australia.. Joe never revealed where he came from and together, and to find out his background, mother and son journey across the land to libraries, and meet...

Inspired by a true story, WOMAN WITH AN EDITING BENCH pays homage to the creativity of Elizaveta Svilova - the unsung editor behind Dziga Vertov's 1929 documentary masterpiece "Man with a Movie Camera" (No 1 on the 'Sight and Sound' list of Best Documentaries of all time). It uses her revolutionary editing techniques to reveal her thoughts and recuperate her legacy in the history of cinema.. WOMAN WITH AN EDITING BENCH is about sustaining creativity...

Traditional Sri Lankan drummers and dancers belong to a low caste. In an effort to break away from caste restrictions, a drummer conducts dancing classes for the children in his impoverished village. He explains the difficulties of low caste existence – difficulties he feels were compounded by the British colonial government.

The Chagossians used to live in the Chagos Archipelago, under British rule, in the Indian Ocean. Between 1967 and 1973, the British government progressively evicted the islander population from their homelands to allow the United States to build a huge military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands. The base was strategically important to the US and British involvement in Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern fields of military operation....