Cinema
Wrong Side of the Road
Ned Lander · 1981
Synopsis
Two Aboriginal rock groups, Us Mob and No Fixed Address, go from concert to concert in South Australia; their musicians play themselves, under their own names, in a fiction drawn from their lives. Between scenes, the tour clashes with the police several times, and the dialogue, largely improvised, reproduces what the musicians themselves have lived through. Us Mob plays direct rock, No Fixed Address a rock tinged with reggae, when most Aboriginal groups played country.
Context
The idea came from Graeme Isaac, a white musician who worked in Adelaide with young Aboriginal people in the late seventies, and the screenplay was written with the musicians. Shot on 16 mm in four weeks in 1980, with public funding and a budget of 60,000 dollars, the film irritated the South Australian police, who had cooperated in the shoot. The soundtrack was released in 1981. A digital restoration by the national film archive was presented at the Sydney festival on 14 June 2013.
Who it is for
A film in English from Australia, between documentary and fiction, carried by the music of the two bands.
Prizes and reception
AFI jury prize in 1981; Australian Cinema gives it as the first Australian feature film played entirely by Aboriginal people.
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