No one would ever regard the insignificant muddy watercourse that wanders through the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, as iconic, or mystical. There is nothing of the Ganges, or the Thames or the Mississippi about the Yarra. Most people barely notice it's there and those who do tend to disparage its effluence. Yet, for the two men who have spent most of their lives keeping the Yarra channels flowing, there is a kind of divine power there. From a family tradition of riverboat men, identical twins, Jay and Vic Walker, see their almost religious respect for the river confirmed, when...

In the remote Esk Valley of Northern Tasmania, a lost feral child finds shelter and comfort with an old farmer and a young french tourist and slowly begins to find himself. Will is turning seven, and despite his parentless, haphazard beginnings, he has been welcomed with affection and nurtured by Hoppy and Ariette. They have been amazed to discover that Will has an affinity with animals, an ability to communicate with them which is his one prodigeous gift. As they encourage him, others begin to recognise what he can do but not everyone is equally impressed. Though he becomes something of a...

In Lourdes, on the holy feast day of Assumption, the body of a dead child lies in a pool of blood in front of the statue of the Virgin. Around her stand those who have come to love her, not just as a child, but as a gifted soul, trapped in a disabled body. Their grief at her loss merges with the love that she has awoken in them. Though she is gone, the love that they feel in her presence, grows stronger. Her body returns to the convent of the nuns who came to regard her as their own saint, but at the moment when they are ready to bury her, she lets them know that she is very much still with...