The story on this is about early 20th century Australia in which the British government passed an Aboriginie Law which allowed them to round up "half-breeds" of aboriginal children to send them to basically conversion camps. In these camps they were taught basic menial labor skills, Christianity, and had to remove any sense of their ancestry and culture.
I've said we have parallels here in the United States and both Australia and the United States had these kinds of capture and convert programs and laws in place into the 1970s.
The story here follows three girls who are taken from their families in northwestern Australia and transported 1,200 miles south to one of these camps. The majority of the story is them evading capture as they attempted to get back home...walking!
The thing that always gets me is the post-story as it is a true telling of the events. Much like Manifest Destiny, the whites felt that they knew what was best for the natives and used religious conversion as a justification.
Still an excellent film. I wonder if Kenneth Branaugh is typecast as an ethnic cleanser, however, as he did this and Conspiracy, both playing a similar role.
Yes, I'll always recommend this one with no hesitation.
P.S. Even though I was down to my last two Australian films, iTunes recommended two more that look good and Jimmy recommended another which I'll add. So now I have four more films in my marathon!
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