Tom Zubrycki

As notions of civil rights transformed across the world, so was the screen landscape reformed by the ascension of grassroots film movements seeking to challenge the mainstream. Some aspired to push form to its limit; others worked to destabilise what they saw as a homogenous industry, or to provoke questions around gender, sexuality, migration and race.

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Gardens of Stone is a short documentary which tells a story of the efforts of traditional owners, bushwalkers and scientists to save a landscape of spectacular sandstone towers from the impact of underground mining. It calls for a conservation reserve right on the doorstep of the town of Lithgow, a town which for decades has been the epicentre of a community servicing the areas many coal mines. The film makes the case that Lithgow’s pagoda landscapes can deliver economic benefits to the town by attracting tourists from all over the world.

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A refugee from 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, enlisting the backing of numerous Australians. Janet, a dedicated supporter, joins him on a 40-day fundraising walk from Tweed Heads to Sydney along with filmmaker Tom Zubrycki. But will this strategy raise the funds they need? Thwarted by escalating conflict back in South Sudan, and shocked by a broken relationship, Zac must decide what's important in his life.

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The Secret Safari tells the story of one of the most audacious military operations in the armed fight against apartheid in South Africa. A character-driven journey of courage and suspense with reconstructions of events using the original participants. Between 1986 and 1993 a company created by the African National Congress operated a business taking tourists on overland sight­ seeing trips which crossed the border into South Africa. Unbeknown to the tourists, under the seats of this Bedford truck were secret compartments housing military arms and explosives destined for the frontline of the underground military struggle.

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Only metres above sea level, the nation of Kiribati is on the front line of climate change. Maria Tiimon, a Kiribati woman living in Sydney, is passionate about her homeland and, despite her shyness, is determined to raise the world's awareness of its predicament.

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Fadi Rahman is young, charismatic and ambitious. With the help of a team of Lebanese volunteers, he runs a youth centre and gymnasium in Sydney's west. The Centre, which has no government funding, is struggling in the face of council planning regulations and funding shortfalls. Fadi sets out to solve all their problems with the help of three determined, but often argumentative, cohorts - Aliyah, Amna and Zouhour. First up, to raise funds he flies out former rap star turned born-again Muslim, Napoleon, to preach a message of non-violence to young Lebanese Australians. Next, he and his trusty team organise a youth conference to discuss the problems young Muslims face in Australia. Meanwhile the Council deadline is looming, with the threat of closure imminent.

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In 1965 during the Vietnam War, students and teachers from the National Conservatory of Music in Hanoi were forced to flee to a small village in the countryside. With the help of villagers they built an entire campus underground where they lived, studied and played music for five years as the war raged around them. This documentary records the coming together of the former conservatory students and villagers for a reunion concert 30 years after the war, to paint a moving portrait of life in Vietnam then and now.

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Molly & Mobarak is a 2003 Australian documentary directed by Tom Zubrycki. It follows a Hazara asylum seeker, 22-year-old Mobarak Tahiri, as he falls in love with 25-year-old Molly Rule, and faces possible deportation as his temporary visa nears expiration.

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For 24 years East Timor's freedom fighter and Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos Horta campaigned to secure independence for his country, a Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The Diplomat takes up Ramos Horta's story in the final dramatic stages of his long journey - the fall of Indonesia's President Suharto, the referendum to determine East Timor's future, the overwhelming vote for independence, the devastating carnage that ensued, the intervention of United Nations peacekeepers, and Ramos Horta's final triumphant return to his homeland.

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The Eter family live on a state housing estate in a suburb comprising mainly Anglo-Australian families. One night a fight breaks out involving the Eters' teenage sons and those of the neighbour. Racial insults are thrown and returned. People are hurt, property is damaged and police are called. The following day sixteen-year-old Billal Eter crosses the road. A car accelerates. His mother sees Billal flying through the air. Billal lies in a hospital in a coma fighting for his life. Meanwhile his parents plead with the government housing authorities to move them from the suburb where the driver of the car still resides.

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In his first exploration of the migration experience, Zubrycki poses the question ‘When the fighting stops, how do you make choices about where you want to live?’.

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Zubrycki’s controversial, provocative and rarely screened documentary about the Australian trade-union movement was originally commissioned by the ACTU and funded by the Bicentennial Authority to provide an audio-visual history stretching from the birth of the movement in the mid-1850s and the formation of the Australian Labor Party to key events like the 1891 shearers’ strike and the 1988 Bicentenary. This pro-union but objective history, focusing on the struggle between capital and labour, and featuring the candid testimony of many unionists, was refused sanction by the ACTU and has long languished in obscurity aside from some “illegal” screenings in the early 1990s.

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Goes behind the scenes of the original stage production of Bran Nue Dae, which was eventually adapted into the box-office hit musical.

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Eccentric British developer Lord McAlpine has a dream – an urge to create a whole new civilisation in Australia’s North based around the town of Broome in the remote north of Western Australia. Within a year of arriving he buys a cinema, builds a luxury resort and starts a zoo. He even has his sights on an international airport. However not everyone likes the change this will bring to the town – least of all the Aboriginal community.

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On the eve of bicentennial celebrations, Strangers in Paradise looks at Australian culture through the eyes of tourists on a ‘Dreamtime’ tour.

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One thousand power workers went on strike against the South East Queensland Electrical Board (SEQEB)in February 1985 in protest against the introduction of contract worker hire. This documentary details the industrial relations dispute between the ensuing Joh Bjelke Peterson coalition government and the Electrical Trades Union in Queensland, Australia during 1985.

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Looks at the history and cultural diversity of the Sydney, Australia suburb of Marrickville. The video features interviews with those who live in this area including people with Greek, Lebanese, Portuguese and Vietnamese backgrounds.

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Weeks before the closure of a Wollongong coal mine, a group of 31 miners occupied the pit and established themselves 5 kilometres underground. The strike, which caught the imagination of the whole country, was documented from the inside by documentarian Tom Zubrycki.

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The film outlines the history of the redevelopment of the Sydney suburb of Waterloo. Residents are interviewed and archival footage is used to outline the history of change in the area. The documentary emphasises the need for consultation and shows the results of more recent residents’ action groups.

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A video that looks at some of the marginalised young people who come to the Addison Road Drop-In Centre in Marrickville. Interviews with both the youth and centre staff are combined with images of the young peoples activities, and in some parts the boys take over the camerawork and commentary themselves.

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The Sydney suburb of Marrickville has Australia’s ‘first, largest and longest-surviving community centre’; it is shown here in the 1970s.

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A video made by filmmakers Tom Zubrycki and Russ Hermann, in collaboration with members of the Federated Ship Painters And Dockers Union of Australia, covering the 13 week-long strike by ship-workers to improve working conditions involving the handling of asbestos on ships docked in the port of Sydney.

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Residents take on the bulldozers and the police in Tom Zubrycki’s look at urban redevelopment in Sydney in the 1970s. It is a 'process video' used in conjunction with a residents-led campaign to stop a freeway decimating inner-Sydney suburbs of Glebe and Ultimo.

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A community video made by Tom Zubrycki and the residents of Balmain and Rozelle that documents concerns held by residents and local businesses about the impact of an existing port terminal on their community. Residents give their perspectives on the issues of noise, pollution and safety which arise from trucks laden with shipping containers rolling down Mort Street, Balmain towards the terminal. The community’s protests and lobbying efforts are also recorded.

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A refugee from 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, enlisting the backing of numerous Australians. Janet, a dedicated supporter, joins him on a 40-day fundraising walk from Tweed Heads to Sydney along with filmmaker Tom Zubrycki. But will this strategy raise the funds they need? Thwarted by escalating conflict back in South Sudan, and shocked by a broken relationship, Zac must decide what's important in his life.

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On a rescue mission to save the piano, a passionate piano tuner meets a diverse mix of owners and their pianos – revealing their stories and relationship with the instrument.

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A lyrical portrait of Bruce Pascoe in the aftermath of Dark Emu living on his riverside farm, recharging and reflecting, as he tests out the theories proposed in his book.

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In May 1973, 10,000 artists, activists, hippies, radical students, gurus and visionaries descended on a small dairy town for 10 days of social and cultural exploration that changed a generation.

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The Carnival captures the intimate moments of the sixth-generation carnival family, the Bells, as they haul their convoy of trucks, rides and workers from Batemans Bay to Darwin and back. Filmed over seven years, their journey includes pandemic shutdowns, bushfires, persistent rain and rising fuel costs – with a dwindling economy thrown in. The close-knit family battles not only to keep Australia’s oldest show on the road, but ultimately to keep their carnival legacy alive.

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A journey into the emotional landscape of family, love and loss of two close friends, both Aboriginal, who were adopted by white families and have connected back with their bloodline families.

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