All the best Documentary Movies Streaming on SBS On Demand in April 2024

Ngāti Manu woman Isey Cross and her youngest son James prepare for the party of a lifetime to celebrate Isey's 100th birthday in Kawakawa, New Zealand.

Ophir tells the story behind the likely birth of the world’s newest nation on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The story of an unknown indigenous revolution for humanity, land, and culture and a decade long war. The film documents its origin and aftermath, where antagonistic visions of the world collude and collide. A poetic yet dramatic ode to the indelible thirst of a peoples for freedom, culture and sovereignty; it offers a gripping exposition of the visible and invisible chains of colonisation and its enduring cycles of physical and psychological warfare.

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

Tom "Putuparri" Lawford is a man caught between two worlds: his past and present in modern society, where he battles with alcoholism and domestic violence; and his future as a leader of his people, reconnecting with his ancestral lands, learning about his traditional culture and shouldering his responsibility to pass this knowledge on to the next generation. Director Nicole Ma spent more than a decade documenting Putuparri's journey, travelling with him and his family on numerous occasions to Kurtal, in the Kimberley's Great Sandy Desert region – traditionally a site of great significance as a place where people ritually make rain – as they fight for their native title claim over the area. Set against the backdrop of this long fight for ownership of traditional lands, the MIFF Premiere Fund-supported Putuparri and the Rainmakers is an emotional, visually breathtaking story of love, hope and the survival of Aboriginal law and culture against all odds.

Four generations of song women from The Central Australian Aboriginal Women's Choir travel to Germany, where they sing German hymns in their native languages.