Newsreels: Australia Today

Australia Today billed itself as a 'digest of current events’.

It was set up in the late 1930s by Rupert Kathner as an alternative news source to established newsreels like Cinesound and Movietone (see the Cinesound Movietone Australian Newsreel Collection).

Australia Today newsreels went beyond basic reportage with a more documentary feel, using re-constructions and re-enactments to produce a dramatically engaging product. The newsreels reported on crime, poverty, international relations, national security and other contemporary social issues in Australia during the Depression and the Second World War.

This collection also includes two clips from Hunt Angels (2006), a dramatised documentary starring Ben Mendelsohn as Rupert Kathner.