A neo noir drama-documentary, The Brisbane Line depicts the forgotten history surrounding the subtropical capital of Queensland, Australia. Set in the shadows of this sunshine city's unsolved crime, the film explores gaps between fact and fiction, memory and myth and excavates Brisbane's original urban sin.—Anonymous
The Brisbane Line is a fictional memoir recounting the career of a former Queensland Police Detective, Martin White. Set against the 1989 Fitzgerald Inquiry into Police corruption in Queensland, Australia, the film lifts the lid on an unsolved murder during the Second World War, a crime which contains the citys original sin.
Brisbane in World War Two was transformed from a large country town into a city. Part documentary and part fiction The Brisbane Line re-imagines 1940s Brisbane when the arrival of General Macarthur and the US military transformed Brisbane into the headquarters for allied operations of the Pacific War.
Reflecting on the turbulent years of wartime Brisbane Detective Martin White journeys through 1980s Brisbane re-tracing the footsteps of his early career as young forensics photographer. Martin Whites physical journey becomes an emotional journey through both memory and regret as his older self is confronted with the origins of his downfall as a young and impressionable constable who succumbed to the temptations of graft, bribes, cover-ups and corruption.
Circa 1940s Brisbane is reconstructed through a combination of archival photography and dramatic reconstructions out of which unfolds the citys hidden history of war-time conspiracy and the crime scene that Martin White helped cover-up for over forty years.
The Brisbane Line is a neo noir tribute to the city and its unique history. The film blurs the boundaries between documentary, storytelling and myth to offer up a narrative of the city that reclaims its hidden past and challenges its orthodox history.
