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Indigenous community 'pleased' with Baz's Australia

19 November 2008 - The $150 million epic had its world premiere in Sydney last night, as well as screenings in Darwin, Queensland's Bowen and Western Australia's Kununurra.

The two-hour 40-minute long movie is a World War II drama set in the Australian outback.

An English aristocrat, played by Nicole Kidman, travels Down Under and joins forces with a drover (Hugh Jackman) and an Aboriginal child (Brandon Walters) to drive a herd of cattle thousands of kilometres to Darwin.

The story of the Stolen Generations also features heavily in the movie's plot.

David Ngoombujarra plays a worker who helps Kidman and Jackman's characters drive cattle.

He says the movie involved many Aboriginal actors and Indigenous communities across the country's north.

"[They] contributed [by] sharing their land and letting us film all over the joint and joining in as extras," he said.

Audiences at the Darwin premiere, meanwhile, were pleased with how the Stolen Generations were portrayed in the film.

Mim McGinness said the film made her emotional.

"I don't think there was any Aboriginal family that ... wasn't affected by that legislation," she said.

Australia opens in cinemas on November 26.

Source: The ABC

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