The Dish

On the other side of the world from Swinging London, Australia was having a very different sixties, featuring a kind of national inferiority complex. But their chance to come outta the outback finally came – as captured in this feel-good comedy, the biggest ever home grossing hit. In 1969, Apollo 11 was to deposit a man on the moon. But NASA needed help in transmitting live images of the first steps on the moon. The solution was a huge receiving dish located on a sheep farm in New South Wales. There the local scientists have to deal with a patronising NASA overseer, in-fighting, technical hitches, freak weather, and the mayor’s ambitious plans for marking the big occasion. With a well-drawn, funny ensemble of characters, a keen sense of period (the soundtrack is a must), and archive footage of the actual events, the director of THE CASTLE weaves an endearingly quirky and comic tale of Australia’s emergence from down under.