Australia’s audiovisual heritage online

australianscreen is a look at the Australian film and television industry, from its earliest days to the present.

You can view clips from Australian feature films, documentaries, TV programs, shorts, home movies, newsreels, advertisements, other historical footage, and sponsored films produced over the last 100 years, with curators’ notes and other information about each title. The site currently contains 2,204 clips from over 1,000 titles and is constantly being added to.

You can also visit our education page for educational content provided by The Le@rning Federation. All clips with teachers’ notes are marked by the e symbol.

Featured title – Australia Post – Onward Speed

Fred Schepisi wrote and directed Onward Speed as a sponsored film for Australia Post. It humorously instructs its target audience of executives, secretaries and mailroom staff in the efficient management of business mail.

> Go to Australia Post – Onward Speed

Featured title – Australia Post – Postpak Rap

This Australia Post commercial promotes the use of Postpaks for packaging parcels. With rap music still new to Australian popular culture at the time, this commercial was very successful.

> Go to Australia Post – Postpak Rap

Featured title – Australia Post – Animation

This Australia Post commercial promoting Faxpost has been shot at low speed to create the impression of high speed travel through empty Sydney streets. See clip three.

> Go to Australia Post – Animation

Featured title – Australia Post – Changing Times

This black-and-white commercial informs the public of the split of the Postmaster-General’s Department into two independent Commissions. It offers a neat little history, using stills from Australia Post’s archive.

> Go to Australia Post – Changing Times

Featured title – Australia Post – This is the Mail

When the $6 million Redfern Mail Exchange in Sydney was opened in 1965, it was hailed as the largest mechanised mail centre in the Southern Hemisphere.

> Go to Australia Post – This is the Mail

australian screen