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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lAboriginal voices finally break through on filmBy Hannah Brown 14 June 2005 - 'It's only in the last 20 years that we've started making movies about ourselves," says Erica Glynn, an Australian director of aboriginal descent who's visiting Israel this week to introduce her films at the Australian Film Festival, which is playing at cinematheques around the country. "Right now, it's pretty much agreed that the best work [in movies] in Australia is being made by those from the indigenous communities," she says, after explaining that indigenous" is another term for Aborigines. Glynn, a 41-year-old mother of four who lives in Sydney but hails from Alice Springs, is proud to be part of this new wave in Australian cinema. Her short film, My Bed, Your Bed was shown last week at the opening of the festival in Tel Aviv and is being shown in Jerusalem tonight and Haifa on June 21. It tells the story of an aboriginal couple who struggle to become comfortable with each other after an arranged marriage. Also being shown is Glynn's A Walk With Words, a short documentary she made about the indigenous poet and performance artist Romaine Moreton. Glynn, who in addition to making her own films is project manager of the indigenous unit of the Australian Film Commission, notes that so far, there have been only three full-length films by indigenous filmmakers, one of which, Beneath Clouds, directed by Iven Sen, is the opening feature of the festival. Through her work with the film commission, Glynn is organizing workshops and other projects to help indigenous filmmakers develop both new feature films and documentaries. "In the past, we've been characters in movies, but we haven't been speaking with our own voice." Nevertheless, she has high praise for the 2002 film by Philip Noyce, Rabbit-Proof Fence - a look at the tragedy of the "stolen generations," half-aboriginal, half-white children who were separated from their families by the government and raised to be domestic servants. Glynn, whose mother was part of that stolen generation, notes that Rabbit-Proof is in some ways "a story of the white community" as well as of the aboriginal people. She also emphasizes that the stolen generations are just one of many issues of concern for her community. "I hope now we'll be able to tell more of the stories ourselves." For Glynn, filmmaking was a natural career choice. Her mother, Frida Glynn, started the first indigenous Australian media organization, which includes a satellite television station that broadcasts to remote areas. The younger Glynn began working there 20 years ago, and eventually went to Sydney to study film. "Australia is beginning to come to terms with the racism and discrimination [against indigenous people] that still exists," says Glynn. As an example, she mentions that the current prime minister refused to make an official apology for the thousands of children, like Glynn's mother, who were kidnapped from their parents - a practice that continued until about 40 years ago. "That's where the country's at right now," she explains. "It is a multi-cultural society, but people are just now beginning to come to terms with what that means." Aboriginal voices are being heard in all areas of the arts, not just film. Right now, Glynn says, films by aboriginal directors are not shown in mainstream theaters, but are screened in "artsy, fringey cinemas" and on television. "We want our films out there for the world to see," she says. "Australian cinema should be the story of black Australians as well as white Australians." Source: The Jerusalem Post relevant links :
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