Two brothers working as news cameramen for competing companies in '50s Australia find their lives dramatically affected by the constantly changing times in which they live.

Decades after his career as a tobacco advertising icon, Bryan Burns’ life is in ruins. After his mother dies of lung cancer, he is tormented by a talking cigarette on an anti-smoking billboard. He snaps and transforms into the Ribspreader, a killer stalking the city, extinguishing smokers and cutting out their lungs to make his macabre smoking jacket.

Dimboola follows the interaction of various characters at a country wedding reception.