Goldstone Mines Australia’s Murky Past

Goldstone, Ivan Sen’s sequel to 2013’s Mystery Road, begins with sepia-toned photographs of Australia’s past. White families gathered around dining room tables. Gold miners dusted with grime. Indigenous children bedecked in white frocks. A procession of Chinese immigrants walking through the centre of a mining town. These photographs simultaneously hint at Goldstone’s allegorical intent as…

Charlie's Country

Charlie’s Country (2013)

Within Charlie’s (David Gulpilil’s) sorrowful gaze is an encapsulation of a people denied the land and culture that is theirs. The discourse around this denial and its ramifications is generally driven by white people under the assumption that Indigenous Australians are a problem to be solved. The draconian “intervention” is the largest example of this ideology…