Best Australian Indigeneous Films
All titles below are from my Australian collection...
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49 titles
- DirectorClifton ChildsPaul WithingtonStarsClifton ChildsLowell ThomasPaul WithingtonAn expedition is sent into the rugged Australian outback to search for a lost white woman.
- DirectorCharles ChauvelStarsRosalie Kunoth-MonksRobert TudawaliBetty SuttorSet against the harsh natural surrounds of outback Northern Territory, Jedda captures a rare and honest glimpse into the heart and history of indigenous Australia. Young Jedda is caught between two cultures forbidden from learning about her indigenous heritage and never fully accepted by the other.
- DirectorNicolas RoegStarsJenny AgutterDavid GulpililLuc RoegTwo city-bred siblings are stranded in the Australian Outback, where they learn to survive with the aid of an Aboriginal boy on his "walkabout": a ritual separation from his tribe.
- DirectorHenri SafranIan GoddardStarsGreg RowePeter CumminsDavid GulpililMike is a lonely Australian boy living in a coastal wilderness with his reclusive father. In search of friendship he encounters an Aboriginal native loner and the two form a bond in the care of orphaned pelicans.
- DirectorPeter WeirStarsRichard ChamberlainOlivia HamnettDavid GulpililA Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal Persons in a ritualized taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing things about himself and premonitions.
- DirectorTrevor GrahamIn 1992, the High Court upheld Eddie 'Koiki' Mabo's claim that Murray Islanders held native title to land in the Torres Strait, ending the legal fiction that Australia was empty when first occupied by white people.
- DirectorJohn HoneyStarsMawuyul YanthalawuyAnna RalphPhillip HintonAboriginal woman Manganinnie survives a Black Line raid which claims the life of her husband, Meenopeekameena.
- DirectorIgor AuzinsStarsAngela Punch McGregorArthur DignamMartin VaughanJeannie Gunn faced being the only civilised woman in an uncivilised land. A story of personal triumph about one woman who reached out in a hard, hostile, prejudiced world and managed to find love.
- DirectorGerald BostockAlec MorganStarsGeraldine BriggsFlo CaldwellChicka DixonTells of Aborigines' removal from their families to be sent to work as servants for white people and the rise of the first Aboriginal organisations in the 1930's, in particular the Aborigines Progressive Association.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsBruce SpenceWandjuk MarikaRoy MarikaA geologist employed by an Australian mining company finds himself disputing the rights of some aborigines who believe their land to be sacred.
- DirectorTim BurstallStarsJohn StantonRebecca GillingIvar KantsA rancher comes in conflict with a gang of renegade Aborigines on the run from their tribe's posse. They try to kill him, but he gets away and hides in the woods. His posh wife and her lover, a local alcoholic cop, go to rescue him.
- DirectorDon FeatherstoneStarsMichelle TorresBob MazaKevin SmithRole reversal study of the historically inaccurate "plight" of Australian Aborigines in modern Anglo-Saxon society. Indigenous "whities" [sic] are being persecuted by racist black people who invaded the fictitious country of BabaKiueria. Politically incorrect and inconvenient facts about infant mortality rates are ignored by a "reporter" who lives with a typical white family in a white "ghetto" for six months.
- DirectorGeorge OgilvieStarsDavid KennedySusan LeithJamie AgiusIn Australia, an aborigine and a white woman battle for custody of the child they had together.
- DirectorBruce BeresfordStarsKristina NehmJustine SaundersBob MazaStory of an aboriginal family who tries to move out of the fringe into the main white community.
- DirectorTracey MoffattStarsGayle MaboCheryl PittJanelle CourtNice Coloured Girls is a short film classic by Tracey Moffatt, one of Australia's foremost visual artists. Three Aboriginal women cruise through Kings Cross and pick up a 'captain' (a drunken white man). They encourage him to spend his money on them and to drink until incapacitated while they steal his wallet and race off to catch a cab, self-satisfied. Nice Coloured Girls contrasts the relationship between Aboriginal women and white men in the past and present. The film juxtaposes contemporary images of black women taking advantage of a white man with a voice over of journal extracts from early white settlers and sailors, in order to question the validity of conventional white history and to deny the image of Aborigines as passive and powerless. Through counterpoint of sound, image, and printed text, the film conveys the perspective of Aboriginal women while acknowledging that oppression and enforced silence still shape their consciousness. The soundscape recalls a rural environment, while the voice-over of extracts from the diary of colonist Lieutenant William Bradley recalls the first settlement.
- DirectorSteve JodrellStarsErnie DingoPeter FisherCharles 'Bud' TingwellBiopic that traces the life of Robert Tudawali, the first Aboriginal film star, whose lead role in Jedda the Uncivilized (1955) is iconic in Australian cinema.
- DirectorTracey MoffattStarsMarcia LangtonAgnes HardwickJimmy LittleA middle aged Aboriginal woman nurses her dying old white mother till the mother dies.
- DirectorJames RicketsonStarsJohn MooreDavid NgoombujarraJaylene RileyAn Aboriginal man is caught between his allegiance to his people and his aspirations to escape the cycle of self-destructive behaviour.
- DirectorAleksi VellisStarsJohn MooreNicholas HopeTommy LewisHarry Dare (John Moore) is a shambolic Adelaide private investigator. He's still not certain why he's in the business; perhaps to understand his father's disappearance, 20 years earlier? But now Harry's got a real case: who stole his father's old Kombi van, nicked (oddly) just after Harry finished restoring it? Director Vellis's detective yarn both delights in the idea of a Kaurna Aboriginal man making ends meet as a private eye and in how Harry's crime-solving smarts seem to grow directly from his resilience as an Indigenous Australian.
- DirectorDarlene JohnsonStarsCarrie ProsserTessa LeahyJie Pitman
- DirectorNick ParsonsStarsBryan BrownErnie DingoAngie MillikenA no holds barred look into the gaping divisions which exist within an Aboriginal settlement in outback Australia. These separations split the inhabitants, straining relationships until something has to give.
- DirectorRachel PerkinsStarsDeborah MailmanTrisha Morton-ThomasRachael MazaThree sisters reunite after some years apart, for their mother's funeral. Cressy (Maza), the eldest of the three, is a diva - an opera singer who is reluctant to visit the past and definitely doesn't want to share it with her sisters. Mae (Morton-Thomas), has stayed behind looking after mum, and believes that Cressy hasn't shared enough. Nona (Mailman), the youngest and the party girl, just wants them to all be one happy family.
- DirectorStephen JohnsonStarsJohn Sebastian PilakuiNathan DanielsSean MununggurrAn Indigenous teen and his friends embark on a challenging journey to Darwin from Arnhem Land to meet a tribal leader with the aim of creating a better future after troubles take them away from their dreams.
- DirectorPaul GoldmanStarsNathan PhillipsLuke CarrollLisa FlanaganIn Prospect Bay, a remote outpost on the South Australian coast, two communities, the Goonyas and the Nungas, come together on the one field they have in common, the football field. But the underlying racism and class warfare threatens to make the team's greatest victories irrelevant. This holds particularly true for Blacky, a white teen who is more interested in books than sport, and his best friend, Dumby, the Aboriginal star of the team.
- DirectorIvan SenStarsDannielle HallDamian PittJenna Lee ConnorsLena is the daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn is a Murri boy doing time in a minimum security prison in North West NSW. Dramatic events throw them together on a journey with no money and no transport.