Stephen Rae

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.

Ray Lorkin, chief lawman in the tiny rural settlement of Wala Wala, Australia, fears that long-simmering tensions between the area's aborigine natives and white settlers are on the verge of erupting. When it's discovered that Kate, the white wife of local schoolteacher Les, has despoiled a sacred site by secretly meeting her aborigine lover, Tony, there, a shocking murder threatens to rip the small town apart.

Mick and Kev – bored, unemployed and aimless in the western suburbs of Sydney – decide to rob a bank, more or less for the fun of it.

A US criminal profiler (of sorts) is sent over to Queensland to help catch a serial slayer, who leaves biblical scriptures behind at the scene of his crimes.

A young girl named Katherine and her older friend Hester live on an isolated farm run by Hester and her father Francis. Katherine works as a maid and wants to leave because there's too much work. Hester, however, becomes attracted to Katherine and holds her there, promising to give her less work in the future. When Francis dies, Hester decides to sell the farm for cash. They move to a small cottage on the edge of the farm and plan to go to Europe, but a tragic accident and the theft of their money changes their plans.

Secret Men's Business explores the relationships and issues of 4 school-friends reunited after the death of a beloved school teacher. During a weekend of sun, surf, girls, wives and late night reminiscing, the friends begin to deal with certain truths which have been ignored for some time. As relationships and issues are explored, the friends face their own personal challenges amidst a contempt bourne out of familiarity.

On Anzac Day 2006 the Beaconsfield mine collapsed, trapping Russell, Webb and fellow miner Larry Knight one kilometre underground. When it was revealed that two of the men were alive, Australia prayed and the world waited in hope that the miners would make it out alive. But the rescue was far more complex than anyone ever imagined. Beaconsfield recounts this riveting story of mental and physical fortitude and two very different men who were trapped together for 14 days under rubble in a cramped, pitch-black metal basket no bigger than a dog kennel.

The year is 1950 and an English couple, Louise and Michael, have arrived in French-occupied Indochina to cover a story on a French-owned rubber plantation. They are to be the guests of the enigmatic plantation overseer, Daniel, and his beautiful yet difficult daughter Viola, at their elegant, decaying villa amid a tropical jungle. Michael and Louise hope that some time spent working in an exotic location will help reignite the passion in their floundering marriage. Instead they become unwittingly involved in the personal, sexual and political tensions of their hosts. Daniel is desperate to hold onto a way of life no longer possible in a country struggling for independence, bringing him into conflict with not only his daughter but also with his adopted country.