With around half of Australia trapped in some degree of COVID lockdown, it can be easy to lose sight of the world outside. What’s going on out there? What are the big concerns of modern Australians, and why aren’t we talking about them?
SBS peels back the veil in their curated series Australia Uncovered, a selection of eight stand-alone documentaries that “explore diversity and equality in our contemporary society”. Airing every Sunday evening from September 12, these feature-length docos will be available to watch on SBS‘s live channel and on SBS On Demand with subtitles in five languages, allowing more Australians to engage.
It all kicks off on September 12 with Strong Female Lead, a political documentary from the makers of See What You Made Me Do. This first instalment focuses on Julia Gillard’s term as Australia’s sole female Prime Minister, looking back on sexism from the media, the public, and within Parliament itself.
That’s a blockbuster Aussie story, but it’s matched in the coming weeks by urgent exposés from TV personalities Osher Günsberg and Celia Pacquola, on the nation’s high suicide rate and anxiety respectively; two documentaries on child abuse, seen from NSW’s child protection service and Queensland’s online sexual exploitation task force; and a celebration of African Australia from author and journalist Santilla Chingaipe.
The remaining two slots in the slate for Australia Uncovered are both centred in Indigenous Australia, with The Bowraville Murders and Incarceration Nation closing out a must-see calendar of documentaries. These programs focus on a horrifying true crime cold case, and the rising number of Indigenous deaths in police custody.
The air date for each of the documentaries are:
Strong Female Lead – September 12
Osher Günsberg: A Matter of Life and Death – September 19
The Bowraville Murders – September 26
The Truth About Anxiety with Celia Pacquola – October 3
The Department – October 10
Our African Roots – October 17
The Children in the Pictures – October 24
Incarceration Nation October 31
Made in partnership with the Documentary Australia Foundation, foundation CEO Mitzi Goldman enthused about the comprehensive scope of the huge project: “Some of these have been many years in the making and others capture a time and behaviour that, although we may have lived through it, it is impossible to capture the enormity of the cultural impact unless it is compiled together into a narrative that allows us to reflect on what is and has happened around us.”
SBS has always been the place to go for unmissable documentary and world news, and now it’s turning a spotlight onto contemporary Australia’s biggest social and systemic problems.
Australia Uncovered gives us the chance—eight chances, really—to glimpse into lives outside our own…or maybe to see ourselves uncovered onscreen “in a unique, bold and entertaining way.”
