Based on photographer William Yang’s one man stage show, “Sadness” chronicles two diverging narratives through the use of slide photography, oral history and stylised recreation. One story follows Yang’s pilgrimage into the heart of the North Queensland sugar cane fields as he investigates the murder of his uncle Fang Yuen. The other is a series of moving portraits of the many friends and lovers Yang has lost to AIDS. Director Tony Ayres skillfully weaves these two separate stories together creating a powerful testament to family, friends, love and loss.

…But I Was a Girl: The Story of Frieda Belinfante tells the story of Frieda Belinfante (1905–1995), a remarkable woman who was the first female conductor to have her own symphony orchestra, first in Holland and later in OrangeCounty, California. Controversial, because of her sexuality, she showed a remarkably strong and positive will in everything she did. Born in a family of musicians in Amsterdam, she joined the resistance during World War II, then later fled to Switzerland. After the war she moved to the US where she resumed her musical career in the Hollywood studios, and formed her own symphony orchestra with Hollywood musicians. The story of Frieda’s lifeis told by herself, her older sister Renee, old students and friends, and illustrated by the places she lived, archive materials of her orchestras and some of her music.

During the time of apartheid Nelson Mandela drove around South Africa in a limousine disguised as a chauffeur while organizing the armed struggle against the apartheid regime. But who was the distinguished looking white man sitting in the back seat? Meet Cecil Williams, an acclaimed gay white theatre director and communist.