Tony Ayres
Four strangers — a flight attendant escaping a suburban cult, an Afghan refugee fleeing persecution, a young Australian father escaping a dead-end job, and a bureaucrat caught up in a national scandal — are stuck in an immigration detention center in the Australian desert. Inspired by true events.
They say art is the mark of a civilised society, but what do Australians really think about it? Each week, a cross-section of Australians will become art critics as they delve deeper into some of the most renowned works in the country.
A gripping psychological mystery told from the shifting perspective of six characters following a complicated chain of events triggered when a child is taken and relationships are thrown into crisis.
Melbourne 1996. The Golden Age of Australian swimming is beginning and a scholarship to an exclusive boys school brings 16-year-old Danny Kelly one step closer to his ultimate goal - winning Olympic gold. Initially, Danny struggles to find his place in the prestigious social circles of the private boys school. However under the charge of highly regarded coach Frank Torma and a friendship/rivalry with teammate Martin Taylor, Danny is soon on track to become Australia’s youngest swimming champion, the unstoppable 'Barracuda'.
A year after the boys crossed dimensions, discovered magic and battled the restoring demon, they are back home in Bremin and are struggling with everyday teenage life. Felix has high hopes for the four heroes. He wants them to push the limits of their magical ability, working as a team to become masters of the arcane. But although he's unwilling to admit it, the boys have grown apart. The boys, once in perfect magical and elemental alignment, are a tangle of rivalry and distrust. On the verge of separating, the Nowhere Boys are drawn together for one last spell when Felix discovers a magically sealed 'Book of Shadows'. Unwittingly this releases a powerful force of chaos, and the gang is reluctantly drawn into a showdown that threatens their world and all they love...
Young, charismatic, and hardworking, Sparra Farrell seems to be sailing into a happy, respectable life. He has a solid job and an adorable fiancée named Paula, and already owns a modest house in the country outside Melbourne. The only odd thing is that Sparra says precious little about his past — but that past is about to catch up with him, and wrest control of his present.
Ted McCabe, a retired cop, and Lennie Cahill a retired crim, get together to solve crimes, unravel scams and make some cash, while avoiding the wrath of the police and the underworld.
The year is 1988. It is 35 years after the events of Fred Schepisi’s classic film, The Devil’s Playground. Tom Allen, now in his 40s and recently widowed, is a respected Sydney psychiatrist and father of two children. A practicing Catholic, Tom accepts an offer by the Bishop of Sydney to become a counselor of priests. During these sessions, he will uncover a scandal and become embroiled in the Church’s attempts to cover it up. Tom’s quest for justice will push him to his limits, and reveal a side of Church power and official corruption he could never have imagined.
Four teenage boys get lost in the forest and discover, when they return home, that they are in an alternate world identical to theirs except for one startling difference - they were never born.
Seventeen talented Australian directors from diverse artistic disciplines each create a chapter of the hauntingly beautiful novel by multi award-winning author Tim Winton. The linking and overlapping stories explore the extraordinary turning points in ordinary people’s lives in a stunning portrait of a small coastal community. As characters face second thoughts and regret, relationships irretrievably alter, resolves are made or broken, and lives change direction forever.
Six ambitious young Aussie actors embark on one of the toughest journeys of their lives with a clear challenge in mind - to score a TV role in Hollywood. This original documentary series follows the actors as they compete for roles during the frenzied and chaotic US TV pilot season. The series captures all their excitement, frustrations, struggles, fears and tears as they compete with the world’s best and try to navigate the travails of the entertainment industry in LA.
Set among the turquoise waters and lethal wildlife of Australia’s Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait, The Straits is an exotic, darkly humorous crime drama. The Montebellos are not your average Australian family. Modern day smugglers, their family business is transporting drugs into Australia and guns and exotic wildlife out, making use of ties of blood and loyalty in the Torres Strait Islands.
The Slap is an Australian television drama series. It was first broadcast on ABC1 from 6 October to 24 November 2011. The series is based on The Slap, a 2008 multi-award winning novel by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas, which explores what happens when a man slaps a child, who is not related to him, at a suburban barbecue. Filmed in Melbourne, Victoria, the series was produced by Matchbox Pictures' Tony Ayres, Helen Bowden and Michael McMahon, with Penny Chapman serving as executive producer. The directors; Jessica Hobbs, Matthew Saville, Tony Ayres and Robert Connolly, directed two episodes each. The writing team included Emily Ballou, Alice Bell, Brendan Cowell, Kris Mrksa and Cate Shortland.
The advocate for a young Iranian refugee held in detention. Amir Ali claims to be an Iranian student persecuted by the government but the Department of Immigration dispute his identity. When Julia meets Amir, he is severely depressed and close to deportation. Julia throws herself obsessively into Amir's case, causing friction between Julia and her husband, Peter. Julia eventually frees Amir and the young Iranian man moves in with Peter and Julia. As Julia helps Amir adjust to ordinary life, she finds herself increasingly attracted to this handsome, damaged young man. But she also starts to see the subtle cracks in Amir's story. Is he really who he claims he is? Or does he have a darker, more dangerous history?
Tom, now in his 40s, begins to write the memoirs of his 1960s childhood, as the little boy whose mother Rose was a glamorous Shanghai nightclub singer. When Rose meets Aussie sailor Bill, they are quickly married, and she packs up Tom and his older sister May to head for Melbourne. The marriage just as quickly breaks up and Rose moves with the kids to Sydney. After a succession of male friends and little success, in 1971 Rose moves back to Melbourne, in an uncomfortable arrangement living again with Bill – and his mother. With Bill called away to sea, Rose takes up with young Chinese cook Joe, but despair and conflicts over May's relationship with Joe tear the family further apart. Little Tom is deeply hurt, but May's ongoing conflict with her mother takes a respite when Rose tells her daughter about her traumatic teenage years.
Friends and family gather around the death bed of Gavin, where they assist in the dying man's suicide. But though Gavin's pain has been laid to rest, the grief felt by everyone there has only begun, and Walking on Water compassionately follows the attempts of Gavin's closest friends Anna (Maria Theodorakis) and Charlie (Vince Colosimo) to recover from their loss.
Based on photographer William Yang's one man stage show, "Sadness" chronicles two diverging narratives through the use of slide photography, oral history and stylised recreation. One story follows Yang's pilgrimage into the heart of the North Queensland sugar cane fields as he investigates the murder of his uncle Fang Yuen. The other is a series of moving portraits of the many friends and lovers Yang has lost to AIDS. Director Tony Ayres skillfully weaves these two separate stories together creating a powerful testament to family, friends, love and loss. Cinematography by Tristan Milani. Narrated by William Yang.
The Violent Earth is a 1998 French-Australian mini series set in New Caledonia from 1888 to 1977.
An older woman complains about the excessive traffic in a public men's room across the street.
Aussie boys of Asian descent candidly discuss their status as a "minority within a minority".
