SYDNEY: “Rabbit-Proof Fence”, a low-budget film by A-list Hollywood director Phillip Noyce, is set to expose world cinemagoers to Australia’s most shameful secret — a government scheme to kidnap Aboriginal children.
The film tells the real-life tale of three young Aboriginal girls removed from their parents under an officially ordained assimilation policy aimed at breeding out Australia’s original inhabitants.
Many Australians still struggle with their conscience over the “Stolen Generation” — tens of thousands of Aborigines taken away under a policy which lasted for some 80 years until the 1960s.
Now “Rabbit-Proof Fence” is to be released overseas, revealing this dark side of Australia’s past to British audiences in August and the United States in October.
The story of the three girls who walked 2,400 kms through the Australian outback to find their parents is matched by the amazing story of how this movie was made.
Australia-born Noyce said the time was right for the film, his first in his homeland in 12 years.
“White Australia’s relations with Aboriginal Australia have changed a lot over the last few years, and I knew that the time was right for a story like this, not only here but also all over the world,” Noyce said.
But that was only after he read the script.
ACCIDENTAL CALL: Noyce received an accidental telephone call at his Los Angeles home in the middle of the night from a woman in Australia. Screenwriter Christine Olsen thought she had the number of someone who knew someone who knew Noyce, not his home.
“He was so unnervingly polite,” Olsen said.
“I woke him up. Can you imagine?”
Noyce was preparing for the release of “The Bone Collector”, his film starring Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, so getting him to read the script took time. But Olsen persisted and Noyce read it two months later.
Olsen’s script was adapted from “Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence”, a book written by Aborigine Doris Pilkington Garimara, who was separated from her mother for 31 years.
The title comes from a fence which divided the continent north to south. The fence, to protect crops and pasture from rabbits, was built mainly by transient workers.
Pilkington, who turns 65 on her July 1 government-issued birthday, is battling breast cancer and has lost one of her six children to the disease.
Asked how she felt when she finished her book, Pilkington said: “I felt like them — triumphant”. She said she had set out to honour her mother’s courage and document an extraordinary family feat.
“It’s gone far beyond that. Now the story itself is being shared, not only nationwide, but internationally,” she said.
And against the odds, the movie is making money.
“Rabbit” was made for about $5 million and its main stars are unknowns.
Its $4 million gross here has nearly recouped its budget.
In its first week in Australia, it came in third at the box office behind Hollywood’s “Ali” and “Black Hawk Down”.
Advance sales overseas total $8.4 million, including $4.6 million reportedly paid by Miramax for the rights to distribute the film in the United States, Britain and elsewhere.
POSTER STIRS AUSTRALIA: In promoting the movie, powerful Miramax is keeping its trademark between-the-eyes style.
“What if the government kidnapped your daughter?” screams the studio’s billboard posters in America.
Miramax says the movie’s subject matter, the abduction of black children, though true to life and heart-rending, has limited appeal unless it can drum up public interest.
“We do not apologize for telling the truth,” it said.
Some Australian politicians have called on Miramax to apologize for the poster, but Noyce said the politicians should first apologize to Aborigines.
A 1997 Australian Human Rights Commission report said the policy of removing tens of thousands of Aboriginal children was a form of genocide aimed at wiping out Aborigines.
Aboriginal boys were used as virtual slaves on outback farms and girls were clothed in white dresses and put to work as domestic servants. Many were raped and beaten with whips.
Australia’s 400,000 Aborigines see a formal apology for the “Stolen Generation” as the key to racial reconciliation.
But conservative Prime Minister John Howard, now serving his third straight term, has steadfastly refused to say sorry.—Reuters
