The Australian Women's Register

In this film Essie Coffey, black activist and musician, resident of ‘Dodge City’ in north western New South Wales, shows the conflicts of living as an Aboriginal person under white domination. This film is part of her effort to make her community proud of their black identity while struggling to survive. It reveals on the one hand, white control of black land, white money and laws, white alcohol and white television’s nightmares; and on the other hand, black attitudes and family life, black history, black education, black music, a black movement and legal service. The Aboriginal people of Australia still resist and survive. Part of this resistance is the passing on of knowledge of traditional bush ways to a generation of Aboriginal kids who have only ever known white education. Essie teaches the kids that the bush is a paradise of food and medicines, and that the land is still Black land. General Note : This is the NFSA restored version (2017). There is documentation associated with the production of the film held in the NFSA collection.