Abe Forsythe Movies

As scripted by John Doyle and directed by Cherie Nowlan, this Australian drama unfolds in a narrow-minded and prejudicial Aussie small town. Not long after 9/11, a cross-cultural romance develops when young boy named Hal (Abe Forsythe) falls for Randa (Bojana Novakovic), an Afghan refugee girl. The couple runs headfirst into bigotry, hatred, contempt, and eventually, violence - all of which grow more severe given local memories of the Al-Qaeda terror attacks against the United States. Hal, however, concocts a clever plan to save the relationship. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Australian filmmaker Paul Goldman directs the comedy The Night We Called It a Day, based on the actual events during Frank Sinatra's 1974 tour stop in Sydney. Joel Edgerton plays Rod Blue, a long-haired rock promoter in Australia during the '70s. He hopes to save his floundering career by spending all his money booking Frank Sinatra (Dennis Hopper). But when Sinatra arrives with his girlfriend Barbara Marx (Melanie Griffith), he insults the locals by calling reporter Hilary Hunter (Portia de Rossi) "a two-dollar whore." Union leader and future Australian prime minister Bob Hawke (David Field) tries to cancel the tour unless he apologizes, and it's up to Rod and his assistant Audrey (Rose Byrne) to step in and save the tour. Tom Burlinson performs Sinatra's vocal parts. The Night We Called It a Day was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Aimed at the ten- to 18-year-old demographic group, the Australian-Japanese science fiction series Escape From Jupiter actually began on the Jupiterian moon of Io, where a mining colony of Earthlings was located. Forced by a series of devastating volcanic eruptions to vacate Io immediately, a group of young people, accompanied by a handful of surviving adults, piled into the derelict space station KL5. The rest of the series detailed the escapees' various adventures while agonizingly trying to make their way back to their home planet. Created by Martin Daley, David Ogilby, and John Patterson, the series represented a collaboration between Japan's NHK and Australia's ABC network. Thirteen 25-minute episodes of Escape From Jupiter were produced in all, beginning in 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi