Kriv Stenders

LEE KERNAGHAN: BOY FROM THE BUSH is a part concert film and part road movie celebrating the life and music of this much-loved Australian Country singer. It combines the stunning landscapes, remarkable people and amazing stories that have inspired him over many years, with some of his greatest hits and a brand-new song performed live with his band at a specially filmed concert.

Brock: Over the Top is a feature length documentary that not only chronicles the extraordinary life of Australia’s greatest racing car driver, Peter Brock, but peels away the surface to reveal the profoundly human story behind the legend. This film is a cinematic, thrilling yet intimately personal portrait of a life lived on the racing track and in the public eye. Using a treasure trove of rare archival material coupled with candid interviews with the key characters in Peter Brock’s life including his family, his partners, and closest colleagues, this film tells the epic story of Brock's early obsession with cars, his hard won ascension to the top, his incredible record-breaking victories at Bathurst, his various professional and personal controversies, and his ultimate, tragic death on the race track.

7.1/10

Vietnam War, 1966. Australia and New Zealand send troops to support the United States and South Vietnamese in their fight against the communist North. Soldiers are very young men, recruits and volunteers who have never been involved in a combat. On August 18th, members of Delta Company will face the true horror of a ruthless battle among the trees of a rubber plantation called Long Tân. They are barely a hundred. The enemy is a human wave ready to destroy them.

6.8/10

History is taking to the seas and walking in the footsteps of Captain James Cook. 250 years after Cook began his epic exploration of the Pacific, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Piano) journeys in his wake uncovering stories that resonate from those times on both sides of the beach. Sam begins with a disclaimer – he is merely an actor – but the story of Cook, and the impact he has had on the Pacific in the 250 years since his first voyage, has always fascinated him.

8.4/10

A chronological history of one of the most influential bands to come out of Australia, the Go-Betweens.

7.3/10
10%

On Australia's most controversial national holiday, the lives of three Australians from diverse cultural backgrounds will collide, illuminating contemporary issues of racial tension and national identity that simmer beneath the surface of modern Australia.

5.5/10
5.3%

Explores the early events leading up to Red Dog's discovery on the road to Dampier, and his ultimate rise from ordinary dog to Australian legend.

6.4/10
10%

Sam Neill examines the enduring myths of the Anzac legend, sharing his family's war stories and uncovering forgotten truths that haunt us still today.

When history teacher Matt Bashir is promoted to Principal of a notoriously violent Boys' school in Sydney's south-west, his radical approach brings him into conflict and leaves his personal life dangerously exposed. But just when he seems to be making progress, a 17-year-old student is found dead on school grounds.

7.5/10

While on a seemingly routine job, a jaded hit man discovers that he's not the only one with his target in the crosshairs.

5.9/10
1.6%

Based on the legendary true story of the Red Dog who united a disparate local community while roaming the Australian outback in search of his long lost master.

7.4/10
8.3%

1902....the Australian Federation is a year old. Twelve year-old Tom's father, Nat, has dragged him and his sister, Sarah, to an isolated farm at the edge of the woods. But Nat's dream of living off the land has died and he is losing his grip on sanity. When three ex-soldiers arrive at their cabin one night Tom, like his father, believes they are providence.

5.3/10

Told in real time and shot as a single take, BOXING DAY documents the minute by minute events across the course of an afternoon in the life of Chris Sykes - a recovering alcoholic and estranged father. Living alone on home detention, Chris is preparing Christmas lunch for his family when an old friend turns up at his doorstep and reveals a disturbing truth. When his daughter, his wife and her new boyfriend finally arrive, the situation slowly and inevitability escalates and we are drawn into the compelling story of a desperate father who finally exposes the dark and disturbing secret that has torn his family apart.

7.1/10

Love can be difficult at the best of times, and the remarkable Blacktown is a disarmingly honest tale of love-against-the-odds. Office secretary Nikki (Nikki Owen) is disillusioned with her fraught, ‘sometime’ relationship with her married boyfriend, Peter. Emotionally scarred by the dysfunctional relationship, she all but gives up on the possibility of finding anything more meaningful. But in the wake of a torturous and disturbing blind date, Nikki meets Tony (Tony Ryan), a “black fella on a white bus”. Despite their obvious differences and Nikki’s disillusionment, the charismatic Tony shows Nikki that there is indeed room for love and romance in the desperate world of Blacktown. (Madman Entertainment)

6.7/10

Gary Kelp (Samuel Johnson) is losing the plot. As he edits a medical journal called The Illustrated Family Doctor, his life and his body seem to be falling apart. A black comedy about coping with the modern world, based on the novel by David Snell.

5.8/10

Short film directed by Kriv Stenders based on the play, "Jack" by Jim McNeil. Starring - Tony Ryan & Richard Green Awards Best Australian Short Film - 1998 AFI Awards Best Short Film Under 15 Minutes - Dendy Awards 1998 Sydney Film Festival Best Australian Short Film - The Erwin Rado Award 1998 Melbourne Film Festival Best European Short Film - 1998 Rotterdam Film Festival Best Director - 1998 St Kilda Film Festival Best Short Film - 1999 Noosa Film Festival

7.5/10

Motherland is the story of two Latvian grandmothers who have lived in Australia (since the end of WWII), and although never knowing each other in their native Latvia, have become close friends since arriving in Australia. Not only did their similar experiences in their motherland draw them together, but these two elderly women have one other thing in common - they are the filmmaker's two grandmothers. Shot in black and white, in both Australia and Latvia, the film explores the women's lives, past and present. The film is roughly divided into two parts. In the first half, the women reflect on their lives in Australia, their families, their beliefs, and their memories of life and people in Latvia.

6.5/10
5%

Vengeance motivates a young man to go to war with the corrupt fishing barons that rule his town, sending him on an epic journey that transforms him from a small-time abalone poacher into a criminal gang boss.