Media Release: NFSA Player adds drama, factual and treasures from the past to on-demand platform

Published Thursday 20 February 2025

25 new drama, factual and arts titles join the on-demand offer from player.nfsa.gov.au this week, with all titles available to rent individually without the need to subscribe.  

Filmmaker and broadcaster Patrick Abboud and critic Wenlei Ma provide context and commentary for the selection, priced at $2.99 / $4.99 per title. 

NFSA Restores: The Cheaters introduces one of Australia’s most significant surviving silent films to the platform for the first time. The 1929 tale of vengeance, mystery and romance, superbly restored by the NFSA in 2017, was made by Paulette McDonagh, who formed Australia’s first female-led film production company with her sisters Isabel and Phyllis.  

Other early treasures include The Kid Stakes (1927) which brings Fatty Finn, the scruffy leader of a gang of Sydney kids, to life from the pages of Syd Nicholls’ popular comics and Rangle River, (1936) a classic Australian drama featuring singing cowboys, romance and adventure.  

NFSA Player explores the development of some of Australia’s most original creative minds, with Namatjira the Painter, Lee Robinson’s look at the life and work of Aboriginal watercolour artist Albert Namatjira; Mr Patterns, Catriona McKenzie’s exploration of the development of the Western Desert Art movement led by Papunya artists and teacher Geoff Barden, and Wildness, which examines the legacy of Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, two of Australia’s greatest wilderness photographers.  

Audiences can also take a nostalgic trip through NSW in A Steam Train Passes, David Haythornthwaite’s tribute to the C38 class steam locomotive: the lovingly restored 3801, while Mark Lewis’ The Floating Brothel uncovers the rags-to-respectability tale of the feisty convicts who became the unlikely founding mothers of modern Australia.  

Wokabaut Bilong Tonten (1972) is a Pidgin language drama based upon the emergence of Papua New Guinea as an independent nation and was the first feature film shot in PNG with an all-Indigenous cast. Audiences can gain further perspective on the Pacific theatre of war in Don Featherstone’s 2008 two-part documentary Kokoda.  

‘Making such a diverse range of long-form content available individually and on-demand on NFSA Player is another way of connecting Australians with the riches of the national audiovisual collection,’ said Patrick McIntyre, the NFSA’s CEO. ‘Now offering 60 titles, NFSA Player’s curation of drama, factual and arts programming, and of silent film from the 1920s alongside documentaries from the noughties, gives us new perspectives on nearly a hundred years of Australian on-screen creativity.’ 

Audiences can view their content as many times as they want in the 30-day window following rental. More titles will be added to NFSA Player throughout 2025.  

Images available here on Dropbox. 

Media enquiries and interview requests:  

Louise Alley| Communications Manager, NFSA | 0422 348 652 | louise.alley@nfsa.gov.au 

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