Harvie Krumpet (2003)

Highly Recommended

Australia

Animated Short Film

Writer/Director/Animator: Adam Elliot

Narrator: Geoffrey Rush

Elliot’s Academy Award winning short film – a claymation cradle-to-the-nursing-home portrait of Harvie Krumpet, a Polish born, Tourettes suffering, militant vegetarian nudist – proves to be a blackly comic, gently satiric, and melancholy gem, which manages, in just 23 minutes, to credibly capture a man’s entire life on film. Iain.Stott

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Chopper (2000)

Recommended

Australia
Feature Film
Director: Andrew Dominik
Writers: Andrew Dominik, Mark Brandon Read
Cinematographers: Geoffrey Hall, Kevin Hayward
Composer: Mick Harvey
Cast: Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, David Field, Dan Wyllie, Bill Young, Vince Colosimo, Kenny Graham, Kate Beahan, Serge Liistro

Eric Bana’s astonishing performance as the infamous, self-publicising criminal Mark “Chopper” Read, revealing the man to be a worryingly unstable, unpredictably violent, and yet strangely beguiling creature, drives this blackly comic (and fictionalised?) biopic, which proves to be as simultaneously alluring and repulsive as its larger-than-life protagonist. Iain.Stott

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"Crocodile" Dundee (1986)

Cautiously Recommended

Australia
Feature Film
Director: Peter Faiman
Writers: John Cornell, Paul Hogan, Ken Shadie
Cinematographer: Russell Boyd
Composer: Peter Best
Cast: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon, Mark Blum, Reginald VelJohnson

A charming, funny, and romantic if occasionally rather cheesy culture clash comedy that sees Hogan’s outback dweller and Kozlowski’s New York journalist experience each other's worlds, highlighting, making, and breaking more clichés than one could ever imagine. Iain.Stott

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Solitary Endeavour on the Southern Ocean (2008)

Recommended

UK/Australia/USA
Short Television Documentary
Directors: David Michôd, Jennifer Peedom
Composer: Lisa Gerrard

A hard-to-watch account of adventurer/head-the-ball Andrew McAuley, who set out to become the first person to single-handedly kayak across the Tasman sea, tragically failing, leaving us to ask just why he attempted it in the first place? Iain.Stott

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Iran and the West (2009)

Recommended

UK/USA/France/Belgium/Japan/The Netherlands/Sweden/Norway/Canada/Australia/Finland/Poland/Iran
Television Documentary Mini-Series
Directors: Dai Richards, Delphine Jaudeau, Paul Mitchell
Cinematographers: Emyr Jenkins, Farzin Khosroshahi, David Niblock, Richard Numeroff, Sheila Smith, Vladamir Trivic
Composer: Samuel Sim
Narrator: Tony Gardner

A fascinating, even-handed look at the continuously tortuous relationship between Iran and the West since the Islamic revolution of 1979, boasting a fabulous array of interview subjects from both sides of the divide, including a number of former presidents. Iain.Stott

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Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry (2009)

Highly Recommended

UK/Germany/Japan/USA/Australia

Television Documentary
Writer/Director: Tom Roberts
Cinematographers: Petra Graf, Tom Roberts, Jonathan Partridge
Featuring: Major Robert 'Snuffy' Gray

Using the unique story of Major Robert 'Snuffy' Gray, a veteran of three wars and an adopted member of the Lakota Indian tribe, as its centre-point, this beautifully paced and often painfully moving depiction of the broken lives of a number of veterans, paints a portrait of war as an endless and deeply human tragedy. Iain.Stott

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