A Film for Discussion

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

Women in a failing silk factory, fight to find a way to keep their jobs.

Douglas Tirola’s latest documentary traces the evolution of feminism through the lives of two exceptional women, Noel and Selma, who came of age in the ’50s when women were relegated to the roles of wives and mothers. During the height of the women’s movement, Noel, a former teen model and Playboy bunny, meets and falls in love with Selma, a tough, outspoken radical feminist. Both women choose to leave their comfortable, yet unsatisfying marriages and children to come out as lesbians. The two share a love of cooking and gardening and, in the ’70s, open Bloodroot, the first vegetarian collective restaurant and bookstore in Bridgeport, Connecticut. By interspersing archival footage and clips from The Stepford Wives, Tirola affectionately chronicles the cultural shifts of the last 40 years as Noel and Selma attempt to keep Bloodroot open as an indispensable gathering spot for progressive women.

In the 1980s and 1990s a wave of murders bloodied the idyllic coastline of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The victims: young gay men. Disturbing gang assaults were being carried out on coastal cliffs around Sydney, and mysterious deaths officially recorded as "suicide", "disappearance" and "misadventure". Individual stories are woven together by first person interviews and detailed re-enactments, piecing together the facts of these unsolved cases, decades later.

In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.

"When you get to a man in the case, they're like as a row of pins - For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady are sisters under their skins." - Kipling. Polly writes for a magazine producing glamorous makeovers for young women. Befriending a member of the women's movement prompts her to re-examine her own feminist values.

Connie Converse was a trailblazing singer-songwritter who bared her soul through thought-provoking music only to discover that 1950's America was unprepared for such candor from a woman. Discouraged, Connie packed her VW Bug and disappeared forever, leaving behind a body of work in a carefully indexed filing cabinet, hoping the world might someday be ready.

A witty, forthright dive into the wonderful world of boobs by singer and filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey - from enhanced boobs to 'free the nipple', bras, Baywatch, and the stars of reality TV.

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.

Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.

Matthew, a college freshman, meets his dream girl in a dorm elevator during a blackout. He never sees her face, but instantly falls in love. In the morning, the power is restored, but the "dream girl" has vanished. All Matthew knows is that she lives in an all-girls dorm. He sets out on a semester-long journey to find his mystery girl among a hundred female suspects. Could it be Wendy? Dora? Arlene? Patty? Cynthia? Or the 95 other girls, any of whom could have been in that elevator with Matthew.