Tony Wilson made his name as a documentary maker on the hit ABC travel show, Race Around the World in the late nineties. Since then he has written novels, sports memoir, non fiction, and children’s books. He was a member of the Triple R Breakfasters and is the founder and host of the Speakola great speeches website and podcast. With Robert Heath and Cameron Fink, he co-directed and produced The Galahs (2016) about a group of Aussie Rules footballers who toured Ireland, UK, and USA in 1967 to play Gaelic football. Their next film together is Boss: Ferenc Puskas in Australia (2022) which is currently in post production.
Tony’s Speakola podcast
Documentary Australia Foundation page for Sepia Tones’ next film, Ferenc Puskas in Australia.
Frontline
I became hooked on documentaries sitting in a dark RMIT theatre listening to ABC executive producer Mike Rubbo (Waiting for Fidel (1973) pitch for contestants for series 2 of Race Around the World. Mike played snippets from his favourite documentaries, including Lonely Boy (1962) and Bradbury’s brilliant, heart wrenching story of Australia’s most famous war correspondent, Neil Davis. Davis is so eloquent, and his simple, calm explanations set against the horror or his Vietnam War footage, has stayed with me for decades. There’s a scene involving a grenade thrower in a graveyard, that isn’t for the faint hearted. I love this film, and my favourite Australian novel is Christopher Koch’s Highways to a War, which is something of a Neil Davis roman-à-clef.
Ken Burns: Baseball
You can’t make sports history documentaries and not salute THE sports history documentary. Baseball consumed me when I first watched It – I think it was broadcast on SBS – so much so that a group of friends would quote the legendary Buck O’Neil often and randomly, and I even wrote to narrator John Chancellor to see if he would record a fan message in the style of episode openings: “In 1973 Sam Pang was born’. Chancellor died before he could reply. This is a masterpiece to rival The Civil War, an American history lesson through a sporting lens, and the Jackie Robinson story is just an extraordinary hour. This film changed my life.
Brazen Hussies
I have an office at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, and for a long time Catherine Dwyer was a few doors along, making this brilliant historical documentary about the women’s movement in Australia between 1965 and 1975. This is an inspiring film, just to be able to see how different Australia was, and how hard women had to fight. From Merle Thornton and Rosalie Bogner chaining themselves to the men-only public bar at Brisbane’s Regatta Hotel, to Elizabeth Reid as women’s adviser to Whitlam and the protest at Parliament House. The footage is incredible, such passions (and fashions!). As someone trying to make an archival footage documentary, this one is inspiring.
John Safran Vs God
John was my co-host on Triple R Breakfasters, and my hero on the first season of Race Around the World. He left our radio show to make this incredible television series, in which he travelled the world probing and provoking members of sects and religions, attempting to cast light on this great almighty question that is GOD. One of John’s strengths is that he applies his sabre intellect and wit with a sense of egalitarianism. Right-on atheists are fair game, as is the Ku Klux Klan. I’ve never met anyone like John Safran, and nobody has ever made television like him either. Music Jamboree is brilliant too, and also on DocPlay.
This is Roller Derby
My son is cared for by a roller derby star called Kathy, and she recommended this one to me. It’s so fun, a look at the origins of roller derby in Depression era USA, the made-for-tv stadium-sized vaudeville of the seventies, and the women-led roller revival of the early 2000s. Kathy had told me about the sport, but I’d never actually seen the speed and the danger involved! Such spectacular vision, and a fascinating story about an emerging subculture of strong, athletic, daredevil skaters!
The Galahs
Olay, okay, I know it’s ours. But what if no other guest curator ever gets to it? It’s the story of a group of champion VFL footballers — legends including Barassi, Jesaulenko, Fraser, Hart, Nicholls, Dwyer, Keddie, Skilton —who went off around the world at the end of 1967 to play the All Ireland champions, Meath, at their own game. We spoke to many of the touring Australians, as well as half a dozen Meath players, and umpire and entrepreneur Harry Beitzel who organised and financed the whole thing, without help from the VFL. It’s a great story of sporting adventure, and you’ll shed a little gaelic tear when the Meath players sing Black Velvet Band at the end. We loved making this, the footage and photos are golden and it was such an adventure for young men who rarely got to travel.
