A gripping profile of Australian academic, agitator and surveillance expert Des Ball – the man who counselled the US against nuclear escalation in the 1970s.

Hailed by former US president Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, Ball was an ‘insurgent intellectual’ who emerged as a key figure in the turbulent political landscape of the Cold War. The Australian scholar and security expert’s theories on the fallacy of nuclear action and his advice to the US Department of Defense played significant roles in the de-escalation of global conflict during the 1970s, while his investigation of controversial US military base Pine Gap during the 80s enraged ASIO – which kept a security file on him. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ball offered guidance on signals intelligence in Burma and Thailand, and his work in East Timor gave the public a taste of secrets the government would prefer to remain hidden.

Employing a wealth of archival footage, veteran documentarian John Hughes (Senses of Cinema, MIFF 2022) captures the heated atmosphere of late-20th-century geopolitics through a distinctly Australian lens, bearing witness to events such as US ambassador Ed Clarke’s ‘peppercorn’ speech at North West Cape, Gough Whitlam’s infamous dismissal from office and the civil unrest that rocked the nation during the Vietnam War. Twilight Time is a rich – and tremendously timely – look at Australia’s complicated involvement in global strategy, defence policy and mass surveillance.

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Director John Hughes is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at all sessions of the film.