A well-meaning but underwhelming documentary that fails to paint a compelling portrait of its quirky Maori subjects.
Continue readingJames & Isey (2021)
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Ablaze (2021)
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Ostensibly a deep dive by singer, and now filmmaker, Tiriki Onus into the history of his grandfather, Bill Onus, the result gives us important insight into the difficulties faced by Australia’s First Peoples over the past century.
Continue readingNew Order (Nuevo Orden) (2020)
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I wanted to like this confronting, dystopian thriller but it is so unrelentingly cynical and brutal that it felt it had nothing new to say.
Continue readingNudo Mixteco (2021)
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This stunning first feature by Ángeles Cruz interweaves the stories of three indigenous women across one festival day in a small village in the Cerro Nudo Mixteco mountainous region between Puebla and Oaxaca in Mexico.
Continue readingLa Llorona (2019)
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Mixing just the right notes of folklore, social realism, tragedy and horror, Jayro Bustamante deftly weaves a compelling and emotional story about the genocide of the indigenous Mayan-Ixil people in 1980s Guatemala.
Continue readingLooky Looky Here Comes Cooky (2020)
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You know if Steven Oliver is narrating, this is going to be a warm and fabulous ride through a serious subject. Taking the 250th anniversary of the landing of Captain Cook in Australia as a jumping off point, Indigenous artists create modern-day songlines that voice an Indigenous view of colonisation.
Continue readingKuessipan (2019)
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Kuessipan sneaks up on you. For awhile it feels like a familiar story of race and class and wanting freedom from the confines of family and community as you teeter on the precipice of adulthood.
Continue readingDay 30: A film I think everyone should watch
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In My Blood it Runs (2019)
I knew that I was going to choose a film about Australia’s First People for this prompt and was gearing up to feature The Song Keepers (2017), Naina Sen’s radiant documentary about the funny and spirited women of the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir. Dujuan, the star of Maya Newell’s In My Blood it Runs, has been on my mind, though, with the talk in the news and our socials lately about systemic racism and violence.
Continue readingDay 22: My favourite film that passes the Bechdel Test
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Roma (2018)
Have you heard of the Bechdel Test? The concept was created by Alison Bechdel in 1985 in a strip called The Rule in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For. It tests films on three criteria: it must have at least two women (named characters) talk to each other about something other than a man. It is a very low bar to pass but still more than 40% of US films fail it.
Continue readingThe Australian Dream (2019)
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Image via http://www.peninsulacinemas.com.au
I left Stan Grant’s measured and important exploration of Australian racism feeling somewhat shattered and profoundly moved. It is a narrative made personal by the journey of AFL star, Adam Goodes. Continue reading
