Words from the City

As four teens navigate the flashpoint of adolescent relationships, their lives will be forever scarred by a tragedy that engulfs their city. Teenagers Billie and Laura, who live in Canberra’s suburban outskirts, are best friends and share everything – even, as it turns out, Laura’s boyfriend Danny, although Laura doesn’t know this. During the summer of Canberra’s bushfires, Billie’s mother welcomes the troubled Isaac into her care and his presence causes disarray in the girls’ friendship: Laura finds herself drawn to the gentle but intense newcomer while Billie’s unpredictable ways threaten self-destruction.

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.

A documentary following the Black Arm Band, a gathering of Australia's finest Aboriginal musicians, as they take to the road with their songs of struggle, resistance and freedom.