Films, Series and a Podcast Worth Teaching
These are the films, series, and documentaries we'd show any class, and the one podcast every Australian should hear. Most were made by Aboriginal filmmakers or with the communities they show, so the story comes from the inside: Yolŋu ancestors on the Arafura Swamp, a young Martu woman's first sight of patrol officers in 1964, a Wangkajunga family making rain at Kurtal.
Each has a short lesson to get a class talking. Some deal with frontier violence, death and the removal of children. Watch them first, and let Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students know what's coming.
Podcast
Frontier War Stories (national)
Boe Spearim, a Gamilaraay and Kooma man, talks with historians and community members about the Frontier Wars, place by place, from Appin and Myall Creek in NSW to Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner in Tasmania.
Why use it: It ties national history to specific places, so students can find the frontier history of their own region, told from an Aboriginal perspective.
Lesson (senior secondary): Listen to an episode about your state, then find one primary source it mentions. Discuss how the source and the oral history tell the story differently.
Feature Films
Ten Canoes (2006, NT)
Made with the Ramingining community and spoken mostly in Ganalbingu, a Yolŋu language. Men collecting magpie goose eggs in the Arafura Swamp, shot in black and white, tell a story of their ancestors, shown in colour. The film was inspired by Donald Thomson's 1930s photographs of the hunt, and many of the cast are related to the people in them.
Why use it: It is told on Yolŋu terms, with humour, and shows how stories carry law and teach young people how to behave.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then discuss how the film uses a story within a story. Why tell it this way, and what does it show about how knowledge and law are passed on?
Samson and Delilah (2009, NT)
Two 14-year-olds from a remote community near Alice Springs take the community car and end up living rough under a bridge in town. The film has very little dialogue.
Why use it: It shows the realities facing young people in remote communities, and makes students read the story through images and sound.
Lesson (senior secondary, mature themes): Watch, then discuss how the film tells its story with very little dialogue. What do the images, sound and silence say instead?
Sweet Country (2017, NT)
Set in 1929 and inspired by real events. Aboriginal stockman Sam Kelly kills a white station owner in self-defence, goes on the run with his wife, and is put on trial.
Why use it: It shows how frontier law and the pastoral industry treated Aboriginal people, and asks whether justice was possible.
Lesson (senior secondary): Watch, then discuss the trial and what happens after it. How does the film show the law working differently for Aboriginal and white characters?
Charlie's Country (2013, NT)
David Gulpilil co-wrote and stars as Charlie, an older man who tries to return to the old ways as the Northern Territory Intervention makes life in his community harder.
Why use it: It shows what government control means in daily life, drawn partly from Gulpilil's own experience. An ATOM study guide is available.
Lesson (senior secondary): Watch, then research the Northern Territory Intervention. Discuss which parts of Charlie's story connect to the policy.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002, WA)
In 1931, Molly, her sister Daisy and their cousin Gracie are taken from Jigalong to the Moore River Native Settlement near Perth. They escape and follow the rabbit-proof fence on a walk of about 1,600 kilometres home. Based on the book by Molly's daughter, Doris Pilkington Garimara.
Why use it: It shows the Stolen Generations through children's eyes, which makes it accessible for younger students.
Lesson (upper primary to secondary): Watch, then read an extract from the Bringing Them Home report. Discuss how the film and the report tell the same history in different ways.
The Tracker (2002, national)
In 1922, an Aboriginal tracker, played by David Gulpilil, leads three white men hunting an Aboriginal man accused of murder. The film cuts to 14 paintings by Peter Coad in place of showing the violence.
Why use it: It deals with frontier violence and power, and its use of paintings opens a discussion about how history is represented.
Lesson (senior secondary): Watch, then discuss why the director shows violence through paintings rather than film. What effect does it have on the viewer?
Mabo (2012, QLD)
Rachel Perkins' telemovie about Eddie Koiki Mabo and the ten-year fight, from 1982 to 1992, for recognition of Meriam ownership of Mer (Murray Island).
Why use it: It explains native title through a family story, not just a legal case.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then explain in your own words what terra nullius meant and why the 1992 decision mattered.
Documentaries: History and Colonisation
First Australians (2008, national)
Seven-part SBS series by Rachel Perkins on Australian history from first contact, told through the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Why use it: It covers the national story in order, with Aboriginal voices at the centre, and each episode focuses on a period and place, so episodes can match curriculum units.
Lesson (secondary): Watch one episode, then build a timeline of its key events and people. Discuss which of them were new to you.
The Australian Wars (2022, national)
Three-part SBS series by Rachel Perkins on the frontier conflicts from 1788 to 1928.
Why use it: It presents frontier conflict as war, with its leaders, battles and resistance, and pairs well with Frontier War Stories. Educational clips and resources were made with Culture is Life.
Lesson (senior secondary): Watch an episode, then discuss why these conflicts are called wars, and why that word has been contested.
Contact (2009, WA)
Yuwali, who was 17 at the time, recalls the day in 1964 when patrol officers clearing the Blue Streak rocket zone found her group of 20 Martu women and children at the Percival Lakes. The film includes the original footage of the encounter.
Why use it: It shows first contact from the Aboriginal side, in Yuwali's own words, alongside film of the actual event.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then compare Yuwali's account with the patrol officers' footage of the same day. What does each show, and what does each leave out?
Black Man's Houses (1992, TAS)
Steve Thomas' documentary on Tasmanian Aboriginal people re-occupying Wybalenna on Flinders Island, where their ancestors were exiled from 1832, and searching for the graves of those who died there.
Why use it: It challenges the myth that Tasmanian Aboriginal people died out, through the community that is still there.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then discuss the claim that Tasmanian Aboriginal people "died out". What evidence does the film give against it, and why did the claim last so long?
In My Blood It Runs (2019, NT)
Maya Newell's documentary, made with Dujuan and his family. Dujuan is a ten-year-old Arrernte and Garrwa boy in Alice Springs who is a child-healer and speaks three languages, but is "failing" at school.
Why use it: It asks students to think about whose knowledge schools value, through the eyes of someone their own age. Cool Australia publishes free lessons for Years 9 and 10.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then discuss what Dujuan learns at home that school doesn't recognise. What would a school that valued both look like?
Documentaries: Art, Culture and Law
Art + Soul (2010, national)
Three-part ABC series in which curator Hetti Perkins visits Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists in remote communities and city studios, asking why they make art. Directed by Warwick Thornton, it covers everything from desert dot painting to photography.
Why use it: Students hear artists explain their own work, and see how art connects to country, family and history. An ATOM study guide is available.
Lesson (secondary): Watch an episode, choose one artist, and find three of their works online. Explain what connects them to the artist's country or history.
Mr Patterns (2004, NT)
Catriona McKenzie's documentary on teacher Geoffrey Bardon and the Papunya artists who began the Western Desert painting movement in 1971, with Bardon's own archival footage.
Why use it: It shows how the movement began and who led it. The NFSA publishes a free study guide.
Lesson (secondary): Watch, then discuss the claim that "a white man taught Aboriginal people to paint". Who held the designs and stories, what did Bardon contribute, and why did the senior men decide to paint?
Putuparri and the Rainmakers (2015, WA)
Nicole Ma's documentary, filmed over a decade, follows Wangkajunga man Tom "Putuparri" Lawford and his grandparents Spider and Dolly Snell from Fitzroy Crossing to Kurtal, a sacred waterhole in the Great Sandy Desert where they make rain, and through the Ngurrara native title claim.
Why use it: It shows law and ceremony being passed between generations, and how the Ngurrara canvas and the film itself were used as evidence for native title.
Lesson (senior secondary): Watch, then discuss how film, painting and ceremony were used as evidence in the native title claim.
For lesson plans, worksheets, printable flash cards and in-depth guides on Aboriginal art, culture and history, see our education resources.
