An ordinary man is seemingly cursed with perpetual bad luck. See this acclaimed film on the big screen!

AFI Award 2003 and Academy Award 2004, Best Short Animation

"Melanie, Rachael Blake, lives alone in a small city on New Zealand's South Island; she works in a fish and chip shop and, on Saturday nights, she goes drinking with her friends, hoping to find a man. On this particular night she meets a stranger, Sam Neill, who offers to take her back to his place. Gaylene Preston's very accomplished film skillfully plays with genre expectations. It starts out like a thriller in which a vulnerable woman apparently makes the fatal mistake of going off with a man she doesn't know, but a series of twists and turns, plus an unexpectedly mordant sense of humour, keep the audience guessing. ...Perfect Strangers is one of the best films to come from New Zealand in recent years. " David Stratton

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A great action movie staged with a bravura and brilliance few moviemakers anywhere could match. The story is well structured, touches of humour lighten the gloom and the climax is straight out of classical cinema. The cast (including Mel Gibson and Bruce Spence) may not be called upon to act, but they certainly look the part. It's hard to imagine anything more nerve-wrackingly exciting. - Ivan Hutchinson, Movies on TV and Video.

The Australian outback, 1922 ... four men track a fugitive, an Aboriginal man accused of murder. Always pushing conventions, de Heer's touch is clear: dialogue is minimal, songs performed by Archie Roach heighten and subvert the tensions, and the violence is portrayed in a series of especially commissioned paintings. With outstanding performances from David Gulpilil and Gary Sweet and a bone-chilling script, this mythical journey is a film for our times. - Melbourne Film Festival Guide 2002.

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The crisp storytelling and romantic sentiments of Iranian writer-director Majid Mjidi shine through in this tale of love between an Iranian and an Afghan immigrant in Tehran

Baran's opening captions provide the film's wider social, political and economic context, informing the viewer that some 1.5 million refugees have fled Afghanistan for Iran in recent decades (although this number is doubtless considerably larger since the 01-02 war). Yet while portraying the plight of these exiles in a foreign land, Majid Majidi, one of Iran's most populist directors, also presents us with a touching love story. It's conveyed not through dialogue, but via the facial expressions and gestures of its non-professional actors.

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" This Award-winning and audience-pleasing film - it stunned the box office in Germany - has impressive performances and a lovely premise. The love that Alex has for his mother and the efforts he goes to to protect her are the emotional core of the film. Director Wolfgang Becker has imbued the film with humour, ingenuity and an acute political eye. But he's elongated the film beyond a sensible length and the voice-over - Alex's - tends to pre-empt events, undermining the film's exposition. Despite the carping Goodbye Lenin! is filled with a complicated yet winning nostalgia, for a mother and a country that don't exist any more. "

Margaret Pomeranz

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Based on a true astory from the director's childhood when he stockpiled fireworks for Guy Fawkes Day, with unexpected results. (The director has likened this to the process of film making!)

AFI Award 2003 and Cannes Film Festival 2003, Best Short Film

Lee Hirsch's stunning documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, which has been warmly received at Australian film festivals, explores the role music, song and dance played in South Africa's fight against apartheid. At the same time, the film tells the history of the infamous experiment in racism that began in 1948, and which ruined that country for so many years. "The thing that saved us was music," says one of the film's talking heads, and the subversive songs that emerged from the townships to confront the regime are remembered with a mixture of sorrow and joy by the survivors.

Amandla means power in the Zulu language, and this truly inspiring film explores the power of music. Songs that mocked the white rulers, or lauded the imprisoned – sometimes martyred – heroes became sources of inspiration to an oppressed people.

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