Australia Spotlight

Sweet Country

What do you do for an encore when your debut feature wins the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival? For Warwick Thornton – the wunderkind director of the prize-winning “Samson and Delilah”- the answer is to again delve into the rich storytelling tradition of Australia’s Aboriginal people. This time Thornton reaches back to 1929 colonial Australia to create a Western set in the stark vistas of the country’s eerily underpopulated Outback. Based on a true story, this gritty film centers on an Aboriginal stockman working the land of a benevolent preacher (Sam Neill). When the laborer kills a drunken war veteran in self- defense and then goes on the lam, he is pursued by a posse led by a determined military sergeant (Bryan Brown). Stunning cinematography and sense of place pull you in as the director turns his lens on Australia’s mistreatment of its indigenous population. Winner Special Jury Prize at Venice Festival. Australia 2017 (113 minutes)

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