Representing Indigenous Stories in the Cinema: Between Collaboration and Appropriation

Abstract

[Abstract]: Not only has there been a large increase during the last decade in the amount of Australian films that tell Indigenous stories, but there has also been a significant diversification of both the kinds of stories that are being told and the ways in which they are being told. Where films like Walkabout and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith in the 1970s clearly came from a white perspective on Indigeneity, in recent years Indigenous filmmakers have become more visible with films like Radiance, One Night the Moon and Beneath Clouds. In addition, white filmmakers increasingly choose the road of collaboration when it comes to Indigenous subject matter, as can be seen in films like Rabbit Proof Fence and The Tracker. This type of collaboration is most pronounced in the recent Rolf de Heer film Ten Canoes. This paper will discuss Ten Canoes in relation to two main concepts, both coined by Aileen Moreton-Robinson: the idea of Australia as a postcolonising nation (rather than a postcolonial nation) and the idea of incommensurability between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. In the process, it will explore the limits to collaboration and where collaboration becomes appropriation, and the implications of these processes for Australia as a postcolonising nation.