How indigenous people determine their identity in post-colonial societies will be the focus of an upcoming film festival at The University of Queensland.
The festival, entitled Otherness in Aboriginal and Brazilian Filmmaking, will screen Australian and Brazilian films with indigenous people themes.
Contemporary Studies lecturer Dr Fatima Lampreia Carvalho, who organised the festival, said both the Australian and Brazilian filmmaking industries are developing a strong tradition of indigenous films.
“Aboriginal filmmaking stands out as extremely original, appealing and also relatively detached and immune to the ‘Americanisation’ trend,” she said.
Dr Carvalho said the theme of Otherness was important because it would critique racism and the denegation of so called “primitives”.
“The concept of Otherness refers to ways in which people, in our case indigenous people to Brazil and Australia, are considered by a culture or group to be somehow different, being thus used in films to appeal to that same culture or group,” Dr Carvalho said.
“The festival compares the way Otherness is materialised in films made by and about Aborigines, as well as films made by and about the Brazilian indigenous thematic.”
Seven films will be featured during the festival, which includes Phillip Noyce’s debut feature film, Backroads.
Other Australian films being featured in the festival include BeDevil: ‘Lovin’ the Spin I’m in’, the first feature directed by an Australian Aboriginal woman, Radiance, and Black Man Down.
The festival will screen three Brazilian films, Moyngo, the Dream of Marageum, Hans Staden and Avaete, the Seed of Revenge, which will be the first time they will have appeared in an Australia cinema.
After the film screenings a panel discussion will take place with Aboriginal director Sam Watson, Aboriginal writer and actor Gary Foley, Michael Williams, the Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit at UQ, and Dr Carvalho.
The Brazilian Consul General Ambassador Arnaldo Carrilho will also be present to give a short speech on Australian Brazilian relations before the festival.
Dr Carvalho said the discussion would be the first to compare indigenous films in two specific cultural contexts.
“The discussion will address the complex relations of racial and ethnic identity.
“This is relevant in the context of the film industry in so far that aboriginal filmmaking can lead Australian productions to the world.”
The festival has been sponsored by The Contemporary Studies Program and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit at, it will take place at UQ’s Schonell Theatre on October 4, starting at 10 am.
Media: for more information, contact Dr Fatima Lampreia Carvalho (telephone 3824 0036, mobile 0421 334 221, email f.carvalho@uq.edu.au).
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