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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lAuthor defends film causing Aboriginal anguishby Penelope Debelle
27 February 2002 - Phillip Gwynne, the author whose book inspired the film Australian Rules, which the Adelaide Festival considered withdrawing because it has upset members of the Aboriginal community, says he was naive when he wrote it and would do it differently now. Gwynne's book, Deadly Unna?, won literary awards as a work of fiction but ran into trouble when it was commissioned by SBS Independent and the Adelaide Festival 2002 as one of four films dealing with truth and reconciliation. With Gwynne as scriptwriter, Deadly Unna? has had its title changed - the film was commissioned as Deadly Unna? but was listed as "untitled" for some months on the festival program before becoming Australian Rules - and the names of some characters and place names altered. But this has not placated opponents of the film, called the Coalition Against Deadly Unna, who are considering legal action against it. When Gwynne was a young boy he spent seven years living in the South Australian town of Port Victoria, near the Point Pearce Aboriginal mission. About five years after he left, two Aboriginal boys were killed after breaking into a hotel. A version of this is written about in the book and film but Gwynne says his work was fiction. "OK, it is based to some extent on my life but most fiction is," he says. "We have a shared history with Aboriginal people and I think I have a right to explore that." Much of the emotional response to the making of the film derives from this incident. In the film only one boy dies and it is not the central point, but the brothers, sisters and family of those involved in the 1977 incident have been pained by the revival of its memory. Point Pearce's chief executive, Derek Walker, says the community did not have a position for or against Australian Rules. Those affected had been invited to a private screening and had informal discussions with the festival director, Sue Nattrass. "What it has done is bring back some personal feeling over the incident," Walker says. "I am sure for some people there never was closure and this had brought it back." Gwynne, who is based in Sydney, says Deadly Unna? was his first book and he never expected it would be published, let alone made into a film. He would do it differently if he was writing it now. "I would disguise the towns more, that's the mistake I made. In my defence, I was really naive at the time, I had never written anything before and I think the problem has come about because of that." Gwynne says he should have imposed his own personal cultural protocols but did not support the view - put on these pages by arts producer Rhoda Roberts - that protocols were needed. "As a writer of fiction I reject the idea of cultural protocols," he says. "The book has not tried to appropriate Aboriginal culture. It is a white boy's story and you don't see Aboriginal people unless you see them through his eyes." The film, which was exhibited at the recent Sundance Film Festival, will be screened at the Adelaide Festival. Source: The Sydney Morning Herald related links:
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