image of person or book cover 7485356087667671623.jpg
Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Lucky Miles single work   film/TV   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 Lucky Miles
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It's 1990 and an Indonesian fishing boat abandons Iraqi and Cambodian refugees in a remote part of Western Australia. While most are quickly caught by officials, three men with nothing in common but their misfortune and determination escape arrest and begin an epic journey into the heart of Australia. Pursued by an army reservist unit, our three heroes wander deeper into the desert, desperately searching for a Western-style democracy amongst the stones of the Pilbara. A film about distance, difference and dud maps.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Works about this Work

Lucky Miles Rewatched : A Smuggler and Two Asylum Seekers Walk into the Desert Luke Buckmaster , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 25 October 2015;
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
Fatal Thresholds: Dramas of the Impossible Subject Suvendrini Perera , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Phoenix : Sri Lanka Journal of English in the Commonwealth , no. 12 2015; (p. 17-37)
'Modern' Cinematic Encounters : Border Crossing and Environmental Transformation in Some Recent Australian Films Anthony Lambert , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 24 August vol. 5 no. 2 2011; (p. 185-192) 'In Australia (and globally), refugees and 'the environment' are major sources of anxiety that define the experience of living in modern times. Contemporary social policy is then a representational technology that speaks to environmental and crosscultural transactions within 'modern' Australian cinematic texts. This article tracks the conversational contours between policy on climate change and border control in Australia and representations of self-other and self-environment relations in Australian film produced in the latter period of the Howard era (1996-2007). Films have frequently sought to mobilize a range of visions and understandings of both security and sustainability, and of the associated productions of policy, identity and space. Such exchanges necessitate critical scrutiny of the politicized cultural contexts that produce them - and an awareness of the normative reassertions that accompany these cinematic mediations of modern Australian experience.' (Author's abstract)
Impossible Threshold? Refugees, Diaspora and the Frontiers of Citizenship : Narrating Asylum Seeker Stories Suvendrini Perera , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies , vol. 23 no. 5 2009; (p. 647-662) Bridging Imaginations : South Asian Diaspora in Australia 2013; (p. 85-110)
'Welcome to Paradise' : Asylum Seekers, Neoliberalism, Nostalgia and Lucky Miles Jon Stratton , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media & Cultural Studies , vol. 23 no. 5 2009; (p. 629-645) 'This article considers the Australian film Lucky Miles (2007) in the context of the developing emphasis in Australia through the 1990s and 2000s on neoliberal policies. This emphasis started with the Labor governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and was qualitatively reinforced by the conservative coalition government of John Howard. Lucky Miles is a film which narratives the experience of asylum seekers arriving on the Australian mainland. My focus is particularly on the impact of neoliberalism on the role of the border and on the popular attitude towards asylum seekers. To help develop this argument I also consider the film Children of Men (2006), which is set in Britain in a dystopian future. I analyse Lucky Miles to understand how it replicates anxieties about asylum seekers and the porosity of the border that are, at bottom, a consequence of changing attitudes bred by neoliberal policies.' (Author's abstract p. 629)
Lost in an Empty Paradise Paul Byrnes , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 14-15 July 2007; (p. 15)
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
ArtsFilm Phil Brown , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 18 - 24 July no. 645 2007; (p. 26)
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
Mothers and Daughters Evan Williams , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 21-22 July 2007; (p. 27)
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
Betrayed - By the Way We Greet Strangers Rob Lowing , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 22 July 2007; (p. 14-15)
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
Men Overboard Craig Mathieson , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 31 July vol. 125 no. 6580 2007; (p. 54)
— Review of Lucky Miles Michael James Rowland , Helen Barnes , 2007 single work film/TV
Dry Humour Sandy George , 2007 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 7-8 July 2007; (p. 21)
First Steps and Tough Roads Philippa Hawker , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Age , 14 July 2007; (p. 17)
Border Insecurity Sacha Molitorisz , 2007 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13 July 2007; (p. 9)
A Long Way from Here Sue Williams , 2007 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 July 2007; (p. 18-19)
Tinkering at the Borders : Lucky Miles and the Diasporic (No) Road Movie Catherine Simpson , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Diasporas of Australian Cinema 2009; (p. 29-40) 'During the late 1990s and early 2000s, independent political documentaries, including Clara Law's Letters to Ali (2004) and Tom Zubrycki's Molly and Mobarak (2003), contested the prevailing anti-asylum-seeker discourse in Australian media. Australian feature film-making, however, had been noticeably silent on this issue until the release of Michael James Rowland's debut, Lucky Miles (2007). This film revolves around the quest of three exiles to seek civilization, resist capture and survive in the desert after being abandoned by an Indonesian fishing vessel in remote Western Australia. Pursued by an Army Reservist unit that seems more interested in fishing and football than the (seemingly impossible) task of maintaining border integrity, the three exiles become more and more lost as they wander deeper into the desert.' (p. 29)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (19)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (7)
Last amended 14 Oct 2014 10:10:30
Michael James Rowland
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Australian Outback, Central Australia,
  • 1990
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X