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- Three teams of gold prospectors take a gamble to strike it big, deep in the wild west of outback Australia.
- The story of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack told by those who managed to survive it.
- The epic story of Australia and the First World War is revealed through the lives of five Australians and their transformative journeys through conflict on the battlefront and on the home front.
- A 70th anniversary television event, Singapore 1942- End of Empire tells the story of those early shocking days of the Pacific War when belief in security and comfort from empire collapsed. For the first time this momentous 20th century battle, and its equally dramatic aftermath, will be told from a multi-national perspective, revealing new and challenging insights into a battle that turned our world upside down. Whilst the Japanese victory confirmed how useless it was for Australians to rely on Britain for their defence, post-war Australians looked to another great protective power - the United States - to align itself with. And Asian nations would rapidly determine their own destiny and seek a tumultuous independence.
- For hundreds of years, human skin color has been used as a marker of race. Now, science is uncovering the intricate relationship between skin color and environment. When our ancient ancestors in Equatorial Africa lost their body hair and ventured out into the open Savannah, their skin had to become dark to resist strong UV radiation. Perfectly adapted to the environment, the black skin of Africans is one of Nature's greatest achievements for the survival of the human species.
- The inside story of Australia's first superstar - Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
- A decade after the end of the Second World War, Marcel Besançon, a Swiss exec working for the European Broadcasting Union, had a daring idea. He wanted to stage a live Pan-European singing competition to promote the nascent television services of Western Europe, and bring the divided nations of a war-torn Europe closer together in a shared celebration of music. The first Eurovision Song Contest took place in Lugano, Switzerland, on 24th May 1956. Just seven countries took part (six of whom, significantly, went on to sign the Treaty of Rome and lay the foundations of the European Community) but it was an instant hit and has become an unbroken annual fixture in the life of the continent. But it came to mean even more than that. During the Cold War, the glitz and glamour on the Eurovision stage was seen as a symbol of Western fun and freedom. Only a very few in the Eastern bloc were able or brave enough to risk their lives by tuning in to Finnish TV signals in secret. In recent decades, following the fall of the Iron Curtain and breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, new nations have clamoured to take part, injecting new life into the contest and raising the political stakes yet further by seeing it as a rare opportunity to promote their national identity on an international stage. Today, the Eurovision Song Contest is one of the most-watched broadcast events in the world, attracting hundreds of millions of fans across Europe and as far afield as Australasia, Asia and Latin America. Some love it, some laugh at it, some are obsessed by it, but most think of the Eurovision Song Contest as just a great night's entertainment. And yet it has slowly become one of the great popular cultural festivals of our age, a carnival of fun and frivolity that can be taken -- in a certain light -- as a symbol of just how far Europe has travelled since Monsieur Bescancon had his brainwave.
- This is a six-part documentary series which followed the crew of HMAS Rankin, a Collins-class submarine manufactured in Australia. The series was devised to give insight into life on board an Australian submarine and the series gives great insight into the cramped, noisy and claustrophobic conditions of submarine life. A typical day on a submarine is divided into four 6-hour slots, or watches, with most of the crew divided into two watches that each have 6 hours on and 6 hours off. The on-watch crew operate their equipment while the off-watch crew eat, sleep, read, study, watch television or use the limited fitness facilities. The crew, usually comprising about 45 people, are away from their families for lengthy periods, leading to strain on the families. The divorce rate among submariners is estimated to be as high as 80 per cent. A sense of danger and suspense is well conveyed through the use of hand-held cameras, the combination of shouted orders, ambient sound effects and rhythmic music, close-ups of the action and, at times, a jerky camera. When the exhaust valve leak occurs the music speeds up and is overlaid with sound effects such as breathing in a gas mask to suggest the urgency of the situation. Series director Hugh Piper and cameraman Paul Warren spent two weeks over four months on board the Rankin. They filmed 233 hours of tape on Sony PD170 miniDV cameras, with the footage then edited to 3 hours of television. Another camera crew filmed members of the submarine crew's families to provide insight into the experience of the families left behind.
- Explore a world never seen before a world hidden under miles of water, the landscape of the seabed. Join expeditions to dive long-lost vessels, discover ancient sites and follow the scientists who are probing the darkest and deepest corners of this underwater world. Computer generated, three-dimensional maps and imagery will offer a first glimpse of these mysteries.
- In Jandamarra's War, we learn how in the 1890's the European colonialists arrive in the Kimberley with vast herds of sheep and cattle, determined to make their fortune by feeding a rapidly growing population in the South. But the settlers soon discover they are in land populated with indigenous tribes, ready to fight the red-faced invaders. Jandamarra is born into this turmoil in 1873. His spirit country, on his father's side, is a land called Djumbud. His mother Jinny, a powerful and independent woman, belongs to the Lennard River flat lands. At the age of six, Jinny takes Jandamarra onto William Lukin's million-acre cattle station at Lennard River Flats. Jandamarra quickly excels in all pastoral skills - much to the pride of Lukin who, like other settlers, boasts about his stockmen's abilities as tribute to his own skills of tutelage and management. Jandamarra remains at Lennard River Flats until it is time for him to be initiated into Bunuba law. His uncle Ellemarra is a very powerful influence during this period of intense education and rapid personal growth. But Jandamarra's passage into manhood is interrupted when they are both arrested and jailed for spearing a sheep. When he is released from custody, Jandamarra is banished from Bunuba society because sexual relationships he has had with various women, have broken strict kinship rules. With nowhere else to go, Jandamarra is assimilated into settler culture and ends up working with Constable Richardson who is, himself, an outsider in his own community. Their relationship is a strange one and oddly close - until that fateful night when Jandamarra kills Richardson, and returns to his people. Now fugitives, Jandamarra, Ellemarra and others attack a party of stockmen who are driving a large herd of cattle into the heart of Bunuba land. Two of the white men, Burke and Gibbs, are killed. This is the first time that guns are used by Aboriginals against European settlers in an organised fashion. Across Western Australia, enraged white colonialists bay for vengeance. A posse of 30 heavily armed police and settlers attack Jandamarra, Ellemarra and their followers at Windjana Gorge. In the ensuing battle, Ellemarra is killed and Jandamarra is seriously wounded, but escapes through a labyrinth of caves. Jandamarra recovers and leads a guerilla war against the settlers from hideouts in the caves and surrounding ranges of Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. But the rebellion comes at a very high price as police and station owners embark on a military-style operation against Aboriginal camps throughout the region. Many Aboriginal people are killed in the massacres that ensue. Jandamarra responds by modifying his tactics. He doesn't kill any more settlers but embarks on a three year terror campaign - killing stock and stealing provisions from under the settlers' noses at night - deliberately leaving behind footmarks and other traces that tell the settlers that he's been there and could have killed them very easily, if he had wanted to. The police try to pursue Jandamarra after his raids but he always seems to find a way to elude capture.
- 25th April 1915 Australian Submarine AE2 enters the Sea of Marmara, Turkey while Anzacs storm the beachhead at Gallipoli. Now lying on the bottom of the sea a search team locates it and it's story is told.
- A team of Australian and Chinese scientists discover ancient human remains in a remote cave in South West China. The bones are unlike any living human or any ancient human known to science, yet they were alive at the same time as humans of our own kind. Do they represent a new human species?
- A documentary on the recent history of Australian wine, revealing how a small group of enterprising Australian winemakers took on the elitist world of wine - and won.
- Three extraordinary men from different parts of the globe compete in a race from the edge of the sun-scorched desert to the tropical coast in the remote Kimberley region of north-west Australia.
- Drama documentary about the 2002 Bali night club bombings, with contributions from survivors, rescuers and the bombers themselves.
- DESERT WAR, a two part series to TV, is an exciting, insightful and subtly revisionist account of one of the most celebrated campaigns of the Second World War - centered on the siege of Tobruk and the battle for El Alamein.
- Almost every week in Australia another child disappears - but they aren't being snatched by predatory strangers - in almost every case, children are abducted by a person they love.
- Irish Economist David McWilliams investigates the causes of the Economic crisis arising from the last decade.
- A major two-part series that tells the inside story of one of the most powerful and controversial media moguls on the planet. Friends, rivals, colleagues past and present - and the odd former Prime Minister - reveal how Rupert Murdoch built his global empire, starting with a single newspaper in 1950s Australia. The series explores his ruthless expansion and deal-making; the billions he made - and lost; the reputations he built - and destroyed, in his never-ending quest to become the undisputed king of newspapers, Hollywood films and global television. A light is also cast on Murdoch, the private man - relationships, marriages, king-making, strengths and very human flaws - and most recently his struggle to redeem himself and his company after the phone hacking scandal that tore through the heart of his empire. Love, scandal, money and reputation: his own life story is one his journalists would be proud of.
- The make or break story of a Somali-Australian refugee who went back to where he came from to do battle with ruthless pirates and Islamic militants - and transform his broken homeland into a modern African State.
- Singer-Songwriter Kavisha Mazzella's musical journey to find the lost songs of a dying generation. Filmed on location in Italy and Western Australia. A moving, humourous and sometimes quirky documentary about some of the larger than life characters who comprise the Italian Women's Chorus, 'The Joys Of The Women'.
- What does it take to win a Nobel Prize? Guts? Brilliance? Eccentricity? This film travels behind the scenes of the world's most prestigious prize and into the minds of two of the people who have reached this pinnacle of excellence. In the most isolated capital city in the world, Perth, Western Australia, two scientists are interrupted while enjoying their fish and chips lunch by a phone call from Stockholm, Sweden. They have just been informed that they have been awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine and could they make it to the awards ceremony? Australian scientists Barry Marshall and Robin Warren journey to the prize-winners' podium is more than just a trip to the opposite side of the world to sub-zero temperatures, cultural pomp and extreme Swedish scheduling-it has been a career of trial and error, endless research and Aussie-battler-style stubborn determination. Today, this odd couple of science travel the globe as heroes-ambassadors of the science world-but it was 23 years ago in a modest hospital laboratory in Perth, that Marshall and Warren discovered a bacterium that survived in the human stomach that they called Helicobacter pylori. They believed that this bacterium, not stress, caused gastritis and peptic stomach ulcers, much to the chagrin of the medical world, which at the time scorned them. After years of careful observation, luck and persistence, they finally had the breakthrough they needed, but not before Marshall infected himself, using his own body as a guinea pig to test their theory. Something that a pathologist noticed as a tiny blue line under a microscope was now a documented new species. The questioning minds of Marshall and Warren have revolutionised the medical community's approach to treatment and dramatically improved the health prospects of millions of people by identifying the real cause of peptic stomach ulcers. This film follows Marshall and Warren's curious and unpretentious lives, capturing their off-beat humour, the people that surround them, struggles, mateship and their paradigm-shifting finding to reveal the profound impact, wonder and excitement of groundbreaking scientific discovery. Through them and other Nobel laureates, we discover what it's really like to win. We also celebrate Australia's proud history of Nobel Prize for Medicine recipients.
- A group of pilgrims, Japanese war veterans and their descendants, travel to the jungles of New Guinea, where their comrades/husbands fell, on a religious mission to give rest and comfort to the abandoned spirits of their loved ones. This documentary is about the people of a Japanese city trying to come to terms with the psychological legacy of the war.
- In the city that leads Australia's two-speed economy, enter the surprisingly diverse world of Perth's entrepreneurs to discover the secrets of their success.
- Follow the world's top shipwreck hunter, David Mearns, as he makes history by finding the HMAS Sydney II, solving one of Australia's most tragic and enduring mysteries. The Hunt for HMAS Sydney gives an eyewitness account of the quest to find the Sydney and its crew of 645 sailors, ending 66 years of speculation and anguish. It follows an unprecedented multi-million dollar search and reveals its extraordinary history: a deadly World War II encounter on the high seas, a secret code hidden inside a dictionary and a mysterious body found in an island grave. The film includes the history of the Sydney and the German raider Kormoran, interviews with bereaved family members, naval personnel, historians, and those who have made the search happen with their dogged determination to bring closure, showing the potent and powerful impact of post-traumatic stress that results from wartime tragedy. And using computer-generated animation, The Hunt for HMAS Sydney recreates the battle that cost hundreds of lives and the pride of the Royal Australian Navy.
- At the end of the First World War, many British ex-servicemen joined the queues of the unemployed. When films and glossy brochures appeared promising 'a new life, a new start on your own dairy farm in the paradise of Western Australia', unsuspecting British families travelled to the other side of the world under a hastily conceived immigration program known as the Group Settlement Scheme. But instead of the promised 'paradise', Group Settlers were greeted by an unforgiving, alien landscape and a harsh, regimented lifestyle. Those who stayed were determined to survive, despite the hardships. They gradually cleared the bush and turned it into pasture, developing the south-west into the 'land of milk and honey' it is today.
- Playing the Game is a three part history series that takes a fresh look at some of the key developments in American foreign policy from the 1930s to the 1980s.
- The story behind the Hollywood film 'The Great Escape', examining the search for the Gestapo men who murdered 50 of the escapers.
- The personal story of a young woman in her early 20s who escapes societies expectations and becomes a sheepherder for a summer season.
- The crew continue on with RIMPAC war games, however the US Navy restrict the submarines movements to avoid repeated embarrassment from HMAS Rankin getting under a US carrier for the second time in a war games. As such war games concludes and some of the submariners meet their family in Hawaii.
- The crew begins Workups with the Sea Training Group to assess if the crew are ready to proceed on to war games at RIMPAC.
- The crew gets its first taste of female submariners, discussion takes place with service family about the struggle of submarine life and HMAS Rankin blows a drive-shaft on one of the diesel engines.
- HMAS Rankin is underway to Shanghai in preparation for RIMPAC, along the way the crew performs an ANZAC Day ceremony at sea and everyone has fun crossing the equatorial line.
- The submarine leaves Shanghai and heads towards Japan where it performs a training drill with a rescue submersible, then the crew has some respite in Japan.
- HMAS Rankin replenishes its supplies as a Typhoon heads toward Japan, mechanical issue delay its departure but it joins war games in time making excessive noise so that when the exercise starts, they can run deep and run silent and disappear.
- In warfare, saboteurs are a silent, unseen enemy with advanced weaponry, and they use their element of surprise to send many ships to their final resting place.
- Lost civilizations, mysterious cities and legendary sites have all but vanished over the last few hundred years. Investigators use technology to "drain the seas" to try and unlock what caused their demise
- War, weather and sometimes human error, have led to some of the worst maritime disasters in history. Drained dry, investigators can now reveal at least some of the mysteries lying along America's shores.
- Towering walls of water, powerful winds and churning seas can overwhelm any ship and hide its watery grave site. Now new technology can be used to force the stormy seas to give up some of its secrets
- The seafloor and its seismic fault lines are the world's biggest tsunami machine, and its dangers, that have long been hidden from view, are now being forced into the light by new technologies.
- For centuries treasure ships sailed the world, hunted by pirates, battered by storms, and wrecked on reefs and rocky shores, but now the technology exists for us to begin to explore what remains of them.
- Beneath the waters of the world, lie undersea empires and relics of their bloody wars. With today's new technologies, we can finally uncover the secrets of these lost empires
- On the seafloor there is a hidden graveyard of sunken war ships. Countless vessels from WWI and WWII pepper the seafloor waiting for new technologies to bring their sad stories to the light of day