Pino Amenta
Packed to the Rafters is an Australian family-oriented television series which premiered on the Seven Network on Tuesday 26 August 2008 at 8:30 pm. The show has continued on Tuesdays in this timeslot for its entire run. The drama series features a mix of lighthearted comedy woven through the plot. It revolves around the Rafter family facing work pressures and life issues, whilst also tackling serious social issues. The Logie award winning series was the highest rating to screen on the Seven Network in 2008, and the show has consistently been among the top 5 shows of the year throughout its run in Australia. It was announced in TV Week that the sixth season of Packed to the Rafters would be the last, with Hugh Sheridan stating: "It's emotional letting go of Rafters – for all of us. It was such an amazing chapter in Aussie TV. I'm really proud we all came back together to send it off." The two-hour series finale of Rafters aired on 2 July 2013, which saw the return of Hugh Sheridan, Jessica Marais, Ryan Corr, Jessica McNamee and James Stewart. Rebecca Gibney said, "The cast, writers and producers have always said that we wanted to keep Rafters as one of the most-watched shows on TV. If we ever felt like we were losing too many cast members, we needed to end it on a high. We can say season six winds up an aspect of the Rafter family and there is a sense of finality to it."
City Homicide follows a group of detectives in the Homicide department of Melbourne's Metropolitan Police Headquarters.
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series which depicted the lives of police officers stationed at the fictional Mount Thomas police station in a small town in Victoria.
Steven Wilsonis sent to Melbourne from the outback to spend his holidays with his Grandmother, an old time Tivoli showgirl/dancer. He becomes drawn into the world of the theatre, where the illusion is everything and grease-paint covers up reality. While watching a pantomime of Sinbad, Steven succumbs to the magic of the story and actually becomes the sailor on his greatest adventure ever.
The film covers the conflict between a father and his son both being musicians. The father is the leader of a band making rock-music from the 60s but his son becomes a star of techno-pop music.
Acropolis Now was an Australian sitcom set in a Greek cafe in Melbourne of the same name that ran for 63 episodes from 1989 to 1992 on the Seven Network. It was created by Nick Giannopoulos, George Kapiniaris and Simon Palomares, who also starred in the series. They were already quite well known for their comedy stage show, Wogs out of Work. The title is a play on the film Apocalypse Now. Each episode was 30 minutes in length and filmed in front of a live audience. Jim's father asks him to run the family business, the Acropolis café, when he suddenly leaves Australia to return to his homeland Greece. The series centres around the activities of the cafe staff. Greek Jim Stephanidis, is the immature owner and his best friend, Spaniard Ricky Martinez is the sensible manager. Memo is the traditional Greek waiter, Liz is the liberated Australian waitress. Skip is the naïve new cook from the bush and Manolis is the stubborn cook from the old cafe. 'Hilarity' prevails from the clash of cultures and beliefs. Jim's hairdresser cousin Effie, played by Mary Coustas, became a hugely popular and enduring character during the run of the show. Coustas later reprised the role for several TV specials and series including Effie, Just Quietly, an SBS comedy / interview show, and Greeks on the Roof, a short-lived Greek-Australian version of the British talk show The Kumars at No. 42.
A successful Australian writer discovers he has cancer and returns home to Melbourne to be with his estranged wife and daughter.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, this epic miniseries centers on the religiously divided town of St. Helens and the innocent romance between a pair of star-crossed teenagers (Tom Jennings and Catherine McClements) that threatens to tear it apart. Gordon Jackson, Christopher Cummins and Christopher Mayer also star in director Pino Amenta's adaptation of James Aldridge's novel of the same name.
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.
Capturing the spirit of the age and the turmoil of the times, Sword of Honour tells the heartbreaking story of a nation at war, the soldiers who left their families to fight, the social upheaval and the emotionally perilous journey back home.
Orphaned after a shipwreck off the Victorian coast of Australia, the spirited Philadelphia Gordon finds both love and adventure aboard a paddle-steamer on the Murray River.
