The Sapphires 2012
It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.
It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship and war when they entertain the US troops in Vietnam as singing group The Sapphires.
Brenda’s first memories were of growing up in a loving white foster family, before she was suddenly taken away and returned to her Aboriginal family. Decades later, she feels disconnected from both halves of her life, so she goes searching for the foster family with whom she had lost contact. Along the way she uncovers long-buried secrets, government lies, and the possibility of deeper connections to family and culture.
During the time of the Stolen Generations, thousands upon thousands of Aboriginal girls were taken from their families and pressed into domestic servitude by the Australian Government. They were supposedly employed as servants, but with total control over their movements, wages and living conditions, their lives all too frequently became an inescapable cycle of abuse, rape and enslavement, with consequences that echo powerfully to this day. Recounting the stories of five of these women – Rita, Violet and the three Wenberg sisters – Servant or Slave is a commanding piece of first-person testimony to a dark and unacknowledged corner of Australian history. Shot with admirable craft and humanity by documentarian Steven McGregor (Croker Island Exodus, MIFF 2012), Servant or Slave is a work of great sadness and urgency, bringing to forceful life the human tragedy of Australia's Indigenous history in the unadorned words of those who lived it.
Colebrook Blackwood Reconciliation Park is where the Colebrook Training Home once stood. It is now a permanent memorial for the Aboriginal children of the “Stolen Generation” and their families.
Angels Gather Here’ follows Jacki Trapman’s journey back to her hometown of Brewarrina to celebrate her parents, Bill and Barbara’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. Going home is never easy for Jacki. Amidst the family celebrations she reflects on her life; her story symbolising the strength, dignity and resilience of many Aboriginal people in the face of adversity.
A young man at the end of his life is stalked by death, while this is happening, he expresses his doubts about existing or what are we?, why are we here?, and also abounds the questioning of why? we suffer and if that is what makes us human beings