Cinema
Jedda
Charles Chauvel · 1955
Synopsis
On a cattle station in the Northern Territory, an Aboriginal woman dies in childbirth. Sarah McMann, who has just lost her own newborn, takes in the little girl, Jedda, and brings her up, keeping her apart from other Aboriginal people and their culture. Grown into a young woman, Jedda is drawn to Marbuck, a stranger from the bush, who lures her to his camp and abducts her. Joe, a cattle hand in love with her, follows their trail for days to Marbuck's lands.
Context
To prepare the film, whose screenplay they wrote together, the director and Elsa Chauvel set out in 1950 for the Northern Territory and looked for performers in Aboriginal communities: Ngarla Kunoth, later Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, and Robert Tudawali were the first Aboriginal actors to take the leading roles in a feature film. Shot in Gevacolor, which could only be developed in England, it lost part of its negative in a plane accident, and the ending was reshot in the Blue Mountains. The premiere took place on 3 January 1955 in Darwin, where Aboriginal spectators were seated separately; the film competed at Cannes the same year, and a restoration was shown there in 2015.
Who it is for
A film in English and in colour, released in the United Kingdom under the title Jedda the Uncivilised.
Prizes and reception
The first Australian feature film in colour; according to Australian Screen, probably the first to take the emotional life of Aboriginal people seriously.
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