Cirrus@Austlit

'To my mother, Else Kuminack, 
'Today is your birthday. It's the only birthday I ever remember. I'm almost as old now as you when you died. How vivid the memory of your life. How vivid the memory of your death. You've always remained alive in my heart and I have always found it difficult to live without you. Today you would've been 109 years of age. '  (Introduction)

'Robert receives the worst news of his life, he has cancer that will kill him and he needs an organ transplant to survive. And so starts a journey of falling in love.' (Producer's blurb)

'A powerful documentary by Paul Cox, this film provides a unique insight into the lives of organ recipients, their time spent on waiting lists, their operations and the everyday realities of living with an organ from a deceased person.

...

'This raw and unguarded film communicates the incredible gift one gives when choosing to become an organ donor. Auteur filmmaker Paul Cox had a liver transplant on Boxing Day 2009 without which he would probably not be alive today. The documentary was shot at a Christmas Dinner Party on Saturday 18th December 2010 at which a small group of recipients gathered. Dinner guests share their stories, reminisce and celebrate the great gift of life given to them. The conversation is raw, unguarded and truly insightful.'

Source: Artfilms website, http://www.artfilms.com.au/
Sighted: 13/08/2012

Dramatisation of the life of Ballets Russes star Vaslav Nijinsky (based in part on his diaries), detailing his madness, his relationship with Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev, and his marriage to his Hungarian wife.

'Retired organist and music teacher Andreas Borg discovers that his first love Claire, a woman he hasn't seen for almost 50 years, lives nearby - that she exists! He writes her a letter. Through poignant erotic flashbacks we start to understand the haunting quality of their early relationship. After almost 50 years their innocence still burns. A comic-tragic tale of love and lust, of tenderness and hope. A passionate reminder to live life to the full. A poignant homage to the human spirit.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 18/12/2013)

In this erotic satire on the subject of seeking love, each individual journeys towards their own sexual awakening. In the process, all are manipulated and exploited by society's powermongers.

When Peter Costello is exiled to a deserted island for stealing sheep, Mary, a maid, decides to join him there.

Michael, the impoverished nephew of wealthy mining magnate George, is concerned about taking care of a mentally handicapped brother and a half-brother who is Aboriginal. When Michael asks for financial help from his uncle (believing that he should, by rights, have inherited some money from his father), George indicates that he isn't letting go of a penny. In retaliation, Michael decides to kidnap George's granddaughter for ransom. The snatch takes place while the girl's aunt, a Polish nun, is visiting the girl's mother. The aunt gets caught up in the abduction as well, and a relationship develops between the angry young man and the otherworldly religious woman. She only knows that he seems like a ruffian, and she expects to be raped. He just wants her to be respectful towards him. The situation brings on a degree of personal intimacy neither of them has anticipated.

'In the last days of her battle with cancer, Marta remains cheerful and determined to live life to the fullest. With the help of Anna, a visiting nurse who has become her closest friend, Marta resists pressure from her son Jonathon to move to a home. Despite her illness, Marta takes care of her infirm neighbour Billy, whose relatives never visit. She also provides a place where Anna can see her lover Peter in secret. When Marta is hospitalised after a serious fall, Anna and Jonathan join forces to get her home. This event also causes Anna to make a serious decision.'

Source: Australian Screen (Sighted: 5/10/2012)

Based on Guy de Maupassant's short story 'La Chevelure.'

An eccentric clock collector finds a braid of golden hair in one of his clocks. He becomes obsessed with the woman to whom he imagines the hair belonged and a fantasy of a love affair from times past, soon beginning an affair of his own with a Salvation Army major's wife.

'A story of three women and their struggle with fate. The women, an Australian, a Greek and a Sri-Lankan, meet on the barren island of Astypalea in the Dodecanese and become entangled in their own desires, the intensity of the location and the threat from the outside world.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 18/12/2013)

The story of a Greek family living in suburbia. The two children win an unexpected prize that disrupts their lives, teaching them that it's not always easy when you get something for nothing.

According to Patricia Edgar, she and writer-director Paul Cox did not see eye-to-eye on the production:

He had spent twenty hours reshaping The Gift, following my viewing of his edit of the film. I found the film unstructured and lacking in the narrative core that most children need to understand a film. This had been a problem throughout the entire production of The Gift. Touch the Sun's distributor, Revcom, was very unhappy too, as it was worried about sales. I had introduced Jeff Peck to Paul Cox to give help with the script, but every time Jeff added to the script, Paul took his revisions out. By the time Paul shot the film, he did what he had wanted in the first place. When I saw the film in its final form I insisted on changes and Paul was incensed.

Source: Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television, Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2006, p.192.

An anthology series of children's stories, mixing live-action episodes with animation, clay animation, and puppetry. The stories, aimed specifically at the under 10s, are drawn from a variety of sources, including children's books, fairy tales, myths, and original ideas. Some of the episodes have involved, for example, Snow White as a punk bikie and the seven dwarves as a motorcycle gang; a pet stegosaurus; a boy with wheels instead of toes; and Trevor the glider-plane-catching cat.

According to Patricia Edgar,

Thirty separate self-contained dramas of differing lengths were to be packaged into half-hour episodes. The project was designed to showcase new, creative talent in the television industry. Competitions were run at the Australian Film and Television School and Swinburne Institute of Technology for the best concepts suitable for inclusion in the Kaboodle package, with prizes of $1000 awarded. The Foundation sought promising but inexperienced writers, would-be producers, directors and even accountants who wanted to earn their first credit to enable them to find a future in the industry.

Source: Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television, Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2006, pp.175-76.

Kaboodle was produced in two series, the first of which included some live-action segements, but the second of which was entirely animated.

For a full list of episodes, see Film Details.

Episode listing for Kaboodle series two courtesy of the Australian Children's Television Foundation.