Dr Stephen Gaunson is a Lecturer and Head of Cinema Studies in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT, who has published widely on the Australian cinema and global fields of film history. Stephen is also currently a Director of the Screen Cultures Research Group, which brings together researchers and practitioners working on projects relating to the screen. We interviewed him on 23rd of September 2015.
I would encourage you to look at the changes to Screen Australia and their policy. I think there was an actual screen on Indigenous content, they were actually looking for Indigenous content and they were willing to fund projects based on Indigenous content. This was around the Rudd time, the number of projects that were actually funded on the back of that, Samson & Delilah, The Sapphires, Mystery Road. The change has been that Indigenous films and Indigenous filmmakers are actually given assistance and encouragement to develop their own story ideas, rather than everybody having to fight for the same pool of money. It’s not a separate funding body, but a separate funding stream as far as I’m aware, I don’t know if that’s changed in the last year. The last five years have been really successful for Indigenous film, Bran Nue Day, The Sapphires, there’s a lot more assistance now and encouragement for Indigenous filmmakers. It’s interesting to look at Rabbit Proof Fence, because that wasn’t an Indigenous director, and there was a lot of criticism, and a lot of pushback for that, and is that a problem. It’s good that Indigenous people are making Indigenous films, but I think it’s also really good that non-Indigenous people are telling Indigenous stories, because it can become a bit of a problem when only Indigenous people are telling Indigenous stories because it’s almost like saying all indigenous people have the same vision or same view of Indigenous australia. If only indigenous people can make Indigenous films, does that mean only Indigenous people can watch these films, understand them. It’s like saying that a white person can make any film about a white person because apparently all white people have the same vision of the world, where it’s just not true, different people have different experiences. That’s why Samson & Delilah is so interesting, because Warwick Thornton was really interested in making a film about the community he grew up in and he was interested in using local actors from that community.
I suppose the funding has actually helped give Indigenous people some more control in the actual process of the filmmaking, which is really good. Something I was reading today, apparently in America, Australian Indigenous films go really well, especially genre films, The Sapphires, Bran Nue Dae, Mystery Road. I guess the future also for Indigenous films would be through genre, and popular international genre. Thinking of films on a more global scale, rather than thinking of Indigenous as a genre. It’s like there’s genres within Indigenous filmmaking, like genres within Australian filmmaking. So that would be another way of thinking about the future. and you can see in the last couple of years that genre has been a really important part of these Indigenous films going quite well. In the 90’s indigenous films were just like, no one went to see them, there was no interest from the film going public, but now, some of the most successful Australian films from the last couple of years have been Indigenous films. The Sapphires doing well both in Australia and overseas, Samson & Delilah winning an award at Cannes, and it actually did really well in certain countries as well as Australia. There’s some things to think about.
I think there’s two reasons [these films have done well], one is genre, but I also think there’s something about Australians. Once [a film] is accepted and well received overseas it tends to do quite well in Australia. and I think something like Samson & Delilah, it’s released overseas and wins at Canne and it creates a buzz and then people become quite interested. The thing about these Indigenous films, they’re not sort of trapped within being a small local Indigenous Australian film, they’re actually quite international in their vision. If you actually look at Samson & Delilah on the big screen, it’s an incredible looking film, and I think that really resonated with people. It’s not just an Indigenous film, it’s actually a film that looks beautiful and could take place anywhere in the world. What’s happening with these films is they’re quite international, Mystery Road being another one, which is very much a Western, the lone outsider kind of film. People relate to that and respond to that, both in Australia and outside. So I guess it’s thinking of Indigenous films as something that’s an international player, rather than just a small local thing. There has been a shift with that recently, these Indigenous films are doing business they’ve never done before. They’re also getting a great critical acclaim. Mystery Road was really well received, especially in England, with reviews and things like that. So I think that would be another way of thinking about it, of Indigenous films having an international future. If you think about these Indigenous films, a lot of them are now casting big international stars, The Sapphires with Chris O’Dowd. Mystery Road has Jeff Thomspon, Hugo Weaving, actors who can actually get some international interest. That would be another way of thinking about the international success and distribution of some of these Indigenous films; that the casting is actually working quite well.
[In terms of the advent of digital technologies, iPhone films etc.] that could be another avenue, it just depends on where that actually goes. Just because everyone has a camera in their phone doesn’t mean they can actually make something decent. I think the training, if more doors are open for Indigenous people to go to film school sand universities and things like that, it will actually help the industry. The actual study of film, the study of cinema. Because directors like Ivan Sen [director of Mystery Road] and others, they have an understanding of the cinema and I think that’s important as well, I mean there’s greater technology there. Ivan Sen’s an interesting director, he was shooting his films on tiny cameras and now he’s moved up over the years. The one objection I have about the [suggestion by Richard Frankland that Indigenous horror might be the next genre], is that horrors actually don’t do that well in Australia, especially Australian horror movies, if you look at the stats. A film like Wolf Creek is an anomaly, Australian horrors actually don’t get that sort of business. We all think of horror as this big popular exciting genre, which it is in America, but it’s actually not in Australia. And the Australian horrors that do ok business actually get a lot of their box office from the American market. Of course, the idea of some Indigenous horror would be good. They actually got that with Red Hill, Patrick Hughes did it. He’s not an Indigenous filmmaker, but he got an Indigenous man, Tommy Lewis, and he gets out of jail and he has certain things to redeem. He actually goes after this gang of white people and starts killing them off, it’s a Western sort of horror, it’s interesting but it wasn’t successful at all.
I guess the problem in the past has been if an Indigenous film isn’t successful then everyone sort of says it’s because it’s an Indigenous film, and if it is successful they say it’s because of its Indigenous representation. Maybe it’s not one or the other. I guess that’s another thing to think about if you want to talk about the future, is it being part of the broader cinema, of the Australian and international cinema.
Talking about Indigenous films as only films directed by Indigenous people is looking too much at the director. The thing about the cinema is that it has not just one voice, it has many voices; through the actors, through the writers, through the people doing music, the editors. So it’s really problematic to say an Indigenous film is only Indigenous if it has an Indigenous director. The problem is, if there’s only five Indigenous feature filmmakers working in the industry, does it mean only they can make Indigenous films? Screen Australia are criticised often for this, for trying to put iron clad definitions on particular things, that’s something I would challenge. I would say the future of the Australian Indigenous film industry isn’t to categorise and demarcate Indigenous from non-Indigenous films, it’s to think about all the ways Indigenous films are being made. It’s also giving Indigenous filmmakers experience on non-Indigenous films, I think that’s really important too, to get a wide range of experience. Warwick Thornton is a big advocate of that, he shot other films not just his own, he shot and wrote Samson & Delilah, he also shot The Sapphires, but he’s shot other films. His whole thing is about Indigenous filmmakers being international filmmakers, not just these little niche stories, but actually thinking about what you’re doing on an international scale. I think that Indigenous filmmakers need that wider experience. Which they can get at film schools but I think they can get more readily working on film sets and things like that. I think that can actually become a problem, if they’re not given greater opportunities.
Samson & Delilah obviously is a major moment, I mean it was interesting, it was a film that came out as a response to the sorry speech. You can see there’s a major shift there, it does well internationally. Bob Ellis [filmmaker, journalist and speechwriter], he wrote a review on Samson & Delilah and he said “Australian cinema starts now” and what he meant by that was no Australian film has ever been as cinematic and poetic as it was. He felt it was a major turning point for the industry. I also think Bran Nue Dae was a really important shift in the industry. Rachel Perkins directed it, who’s directed other films. She’s a competent filmmaker but she’s never really directed any popular films, and it was like ‘oh it’s a musical’ and it was really popular. It was incorporating Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors and it was a feel-good Indigenous film based on a feel-good Indigenous musical. People really engaged with it and it was a huge success. I think that inspired The Sapphires and some others, and the industry to think about genre as a way to bridge maybe some divides that Indigenous films have had. Indigenous films have never really been considered as genre, they’ve always been a particular kind of film, a dreary dull sort of film. A film like Bran Nue Dae is actually going against that, and I think that’s helped. I think television is important to cover, because in a way TV is putting Indigenous people in white Australian homes, and I think Black Comedy is good because it uses humour to do that, and it’s actually very funny. Redfern Now is another one, the second series didn’t do well and I don’t think the telemovie did that well, but the first series did really well. That was another way also of thinking about it. There was actually issues with Jimmy McGoven [script editor] working with the Indigenous filmmakers, because he wanted it be a very generic story, and the Indigenous filmmakers were saying, no there’s a particular vision and way of depicting an Indigenous character that he didn’t seem to understand. So apparently there was a lot of tension between them. I think those two films were really quite crucial in the industry. Then you’ve got the smaller films like Mystery Road which does quite well overseas, and also Red Hill, they’re genre films and I think that’s another turning point.