In this episode, Andrew interviews Lynette Wallworth about her collaborative documentary Edge of Life.

This interview was recorded during the national release of Edge of Life, currently in a limited run in Australian cinemas. Check out your local cinema guide for details, or visit Kismet Movies for additional information on where and how to view the film.

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A brilliant circus family’s hidden legacy unfolds as descendants reunite across continents, revealing their Australian Aboriginal ancestry, global stardom, and the extraordinary secrets they kept in order to survive. The greatest entertainment on earth in the 1900s was the circus and its performers were the global superstars. The big top transported children and adults alike into a world where anything was possible.

Con Colleano, ‘the wizard on the wire’ defied gravity, while he and his family defied all odds to become a global phenomenon. Through the Colleano family's remarkable home movies, never-before-seen footage, family interviews and archive, their extraordinary story is revealed. Rooted in humble beginnings from the Australian bush, the family outmanoeuvred punitive Australian laws and prejudice to travel the world, concealing their Indigenous heritage and reaching the highest echelons of circus stardom.

Con Colleano dazzled fans while also mingling with icons including Charlie Chaplin, at the most exclusive social sets of America and Europe, beguiling even the likes of Hitler and Mussolini.

As the filmmaker, Pauline Clague, reveals her connection to the story, she finds Australian Deb Hescott, who uncovers her own secret link to this family. Connecting with Molly, one of the oral history holders of the family, they go on a profound journey of discovery. The Colleano Heart unravels the hidden secrets of their family of circus royalty, revealing them as survivors of Australia’s Hidden Generation of Aboriginal people.

The Colleano Heart presents a rich portrait of the family, and the global socio-cultural shifts shaping First Nations lives. The Colleano Heart recently screened at the Adelaide Film Festival, and Nadine Whitney spoke with director Pauline Clague ahead of the films screening about her film.

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Documentarian Yaaa Bou Melhem expands her approach to collaborative documentary storytelling with her latest feature Yurlu | Country. This essential film follows the final year of the life of Aboriginal elder Maitland Parker as he continues his decades long fight to heal his homeland after the scarification from the caustic asbestos mines in Wittenoom which left the area as the largest contaminated site in the Southern Hemisphere.

Shot with a respectful admiration for the beauty of the land by Tom Bannigan whose camerawork is supported by the immersive and powerful score from Helena Czajka, Yurlu | Country arrives at a time where the history of mining in Western Australia and its relationship to Aboriginal folks from this land is under more scrutiny than ever before with the announcement of caustic mining operations intending to take place on the Burrup Peninsula, home of rock art that is up to 50,000 years old.

For many Western Australians, myself included, we carry an anger and frustration with our governments, with each consecutive one failing people like Maitland by not allowing them to be able to be on Country and connect to their land. Within the film, Yaara and Maitland show us the fight being undertaken to allow remediation to take place so the traditional custodians of the land can return home. Legal action is on the horizon, and to go alongside that, an impact campaign will be launched. To find out more about that campaign, the film, and more, visit YurluCountry.com where you can find out how to host screenings of the film, share it with audiences, and to buy tickets to the many Q&A sessions across Australia. You can also find a link to CleanUpWittenoom.com where you can donate towards the Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation to help with their campaign to clean up Wittenoom.

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Sophie Somerville is an Australian emerging filmmaker whose short films Linda 4 Eva and Peeps made waves at film festivals around the world. Now with her feature film debut Fwends, winner of the Berlinale Forum's Caligari Film Prize for Innovation, Sophie firmly makes her mark on Australian cinema as a talent to watch out for.

As Cody Allen wrote in their review, Fwends is 'a tender portrait of friendship, loss and rediscovery' and it's out in Australian cinemas from 7 November 2025.

Nadine Whitney interviews Sophie ahead of the films release.

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In this podcast, Nadine Whitney speaks with documentarians Maggie Miles & Trisha Morton-Thomas about the extraordinary documentary Journey Home, David Gulpilil.

Journey Home, David Gulpilil is a sacred film which brings us into the funerary customs and that informed David's life. Maggie and Trisha follow David's remains from South Australia all the way to east Arnhem Land and along the way we see the impact that David had on not only the cinematic landscape of Australia but as a storyteller for Indigenous people in Australia.

This is an extraordinary film that makes a wonderful companion piece to My Name is David Gulpilil.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

We’d also love it if you could rate and review us on the podcast player of your choice. Every review helps amplify the interviews and stories to a wider audience.

Journey Home, David Gulpilil is in Australian cinemas from 30 October 2025. Visit Madman.com.au for further details.

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Writer-Director Adrian Ortega's Westgate follows Netta (Sarah Nicolazzo) and her son Julian (Max Nappo) as she embarks on a torturous day of navigating hospitals, family, cultural prejudices, and more, all as she faces the threat of eviction and the ever rising debts that keep her and her son trapped in a class struggle.

This is a film written from a lived-in perspective, with Adrian pulling from his own life to craft a tale that acts as an ode to mothers and the children they raised.

In the following interview, recorded ahead of Westgate's appearance at SXSW Sydney on 17 October 2025, Adrian, Sarah, and Max talk about the collaborative approach to making this Melbourne based drama. Sarah and Max talk about learning from Adrian and his mother, as well as the bonding techniques they used to help strengthen that mother-son relationship that comes across so strongly on screen.

Read Nadine Whitney's review of Westgate here and follow the film on Instagram here to be kept up to date regarding future screening dates.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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Aussie genre filmmaking legend Kiah Roache-Turner is back with his latest flick, Beast of War, a WW2 story of soldiers fighting for their lives on a different kind of battlefield: the shark infested waters of the open ocean.

In the above interview, Kiah talks about the journey to getting Beast of War on screen, how the impact of Spielberg meant that he had to shoot the film in Australia, and what creating the giant water tank to shoot in was like, plus much more.

Beast of War is in Australian cinemas from 9 October 2025.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky @thecurbau. We are a completely independent and ad free website that lives on the support of listeners and readers just like you. Visit Patreon.com/thecurbau, where you can support our work from as little as $1 a month. If you are unable to financially support us, then please consider sharing this interview with your podcast loving friends.

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Bina Bhattacharya is a creative storyteller whose work I've been following for a while now. Her 2017 short film Wild Dances embraced music and cultural identity against the backdrop of Eurovision, while her section in the exemplary anthology film Here Out West, titled The Eternal Dance, is the story from that film that has left the deepest mark on me. 

Music plays a major role in Bina's filmmaking, and it's another prominent aspect of her feature length debut film From All Sides, with Georgia Anderson's Nina using music to support her passion for dance. This is just one slice of the narrative tapestry that Bina is working with in From All Sides, a drama which presents narratives we rarely see on Australian screens, let alone in global cinema. From the audacious opening which sees wife and husband, Anoushka (Monique Kalmar) and Pascal (Max Brown), engaging in a steamy bisexual foursome, to their domestic lives as parents to Nina and Clyde (Gavril Kumar), and then into the workplace where Anoushka navigates the politics of a support business owned by Toula (Rebekah Elmaloglou). While, on paper, it might seem like there's a lot going on within From All Sides, Bina writes the film like a slice of life. 

As you'll hear in the following interview, the lived-in perspective of From All Sides comes from Bina herself and her desire to see bisexual stories on screen alongside Australian stories told from a South Asian perspective. This interview was recorded ahead of From All Sides world premiere at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, and its subsequent screening at the Queer Screen Film Fest. Queer Screen had previously taken From All Sides to the Marche Du Film in Cannes earlier in 2025 for their Queer Screen Goes to Cannes selection. 

This is a wide ranging interview with Bina, where we talk about what it means to present stories from Western Sydney on screen, what her creative journey was like to get to this feature film stage, the importance of seeing bisexual lives on screen, and much, much more. 

To find out more about Bina's work, make sure to follow her on Instagram @binafilmmaker. 

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Julie Pacino’s dark fairytale I Live Here Now is a powerful and complex debut feature that places the audience in the space between dream and nightmare as Rose (Lucy Fry) finds herself in an impossible but familiar hotel where she confronts the shadows and scars of her psyche.

Featuring unforgettable supporting cast including Madeleine Brewer, Matt Rife, and the iconic Sheryl Lee: I Live Here Now is a battle for individuation and selfhood in an internal and external reality that is hostile to Rose and her ambition to take control of her life.

Playing at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 13 September 2025 I Live Here Now will ignite the screen with Pacino’s bold vision. Tickets are available via SUFF.com.au.

Nadine Whitney spoke to Julie about what makes I Live Here Now frightening and empowering.

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