[Commpsych] FW: Documentary of interest

[Heather Gridley]

Please find below information on a documentary screening, book launch and discussion to be held early next month in Melbourne.  Community psychologists who participated in the 'mobile workshop' trip to Roxby Downs and Maralinga in 1990 will remember viewing Pilger's shattering Secret Country on the bus.

Heather

Documentary Film Screening
‘Utopia’ by John Pilger

Tuesday, 4 February 2014
6.30 pm ­­– 9.30pm
RMIT City Campus – Storey Hall Auditorium
342–344 Swanston Street, Melbourne

This is a free public screening

To reserve your place simply email info at concernedaustralians.com.au<mailto:info at concernedaustralians.com.au> or phone 03 9415 7164<tel:03%209415%207164>

Proudly hosted by concerned Australians (cA), Arena Publishing, and the Global Indigeneity and Reconciliation Program (Global Cities Research Institute, RMIT)

About ‘Utopia’:
Two years in the making, Utopia reveals a shocking national secret behind the postcard image of the "lucky country". Utopia is a vast region in northern Australia and home to the oldest human presence on earth. This film is a journey into that secret country,’ says Pilger in Utopia. ‘It will describe not only the uniqueness of the first Australians, but their trail of tears and betrayal and resistance—from one utopia to another.’ Pilger begins his journey in Sydney, where he grew up, and in Canberra, the nation’s capital, where the national parliament rises in an affluent suburb called Barton, recently awarded the title of Australia’s most advantaged community. Barton is named after Edmund Barton, the first prime minister of Australia, who in 1901 introduced the White Australia Policy. “The doctrine of the equality of man,” said Barton, “was never intended to apply to those who weren’t British and white-skinned.” He made no mention of the original inhabitants who were deemed barely human, unworthy of recognition in the first suburban utopia. One of the world’s best kept secrets is revealed against a background of the greatest boom in mineral wealth. Has the ‘lucky country’ inherited South African apartheid? And how could this happen in the 21st century? What role has the media played? Utopia is both a personal journey and universal story of power and resistance and how modern societies can be divided between those who conform and a dystopian world of those who do not conform. Utopia draws on people and places Pilger first filmed 28 years ago during his long association with the indigenous people of his homeland. The evidence he produces is often deeply moving and shocking.

The screening of this film about Aboriginal Australia will incorporate the launch by Alastair Nicholson of ‘In the Absence of Treaty’, a new book edited by Michele Harris and published by concerned Australians. Joining Alastair on stage will be playwright, scriptwriter and musician, Richard Frankland. A member of the Gunditjmara people in Western Victoria, Richard has worked tirelessly for the Aboriginal Australian cause.

For more information Click Here<http://global-cities.info/content/major_addresses/john-pilger-documentary-film-screening-utopia>


Heather Gridley

Honorary Fellow

College of Arts

Victoria University

Melbourne, Australia



E: heather.gridley at vu.edu.au<mailto:heather.gridley at vu.edu.au>

Ph: +61 419113731




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