Redfern Now is 'the first contemporary TV drama series written, directed and produced by Indigenous Australians.'
Source: ABC Television website.
Pretty Boy Blue
Australia
:
ABC Television
Blackfella Films
,
2012
6037468
2012
single work
film/TV
'Aaron Davis is a proud Indigenous policeman: proud of the community in which he works, and very proud of his daughter Robyn and his three-year-old granddaughter Donna.
'It's early morning, and Aaron does his usual boxing training with local kids, and the only thing to mar the day is that he is being taunted by young troublemaker Lenny.
'Late that day as Aaron is finishing up at the station Lenny is brought in yelling abuse. Lenny's been in a bad fight and Aaron is about to call for a doctor. But he stops when Lenny's taunting pushes him too far, and so when Lenny calls out from the cell in pain, Aaron ignores him.
'But Lenny's cries suddenly stop and Aaron realises that something is terribly wrong. He rushes to help, but it's too late — Lenny is dead. And so Aaron's nightmare begins.
'As word of the death spreads, Lenny's brother tries to cause trouble but he and his young friends are held back, talked around by family and community. Lenny's mother, Aunty Mona, asks Aaron whether her boy suffered. Aaron lies and tells her no.
'But when Lenny's family is shown the cell surveillance tapes, Aaron has to find the courage to go and tell Aunty Mona the truth.'
Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 11/6/2013)
Australia : ABC Television Blackfella Films , 2012
Redfern Now : The Telemovie
Redfern Now : Promise Me
( dir. Rachel Perkins
)
Blackfella Films
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
,
2014
8441727
2014
single work
film/TV
This powerful, heartbreaking and uplifting telemovie explores the impact of a violent crime on two women and the fight for justice.
'In recent years a number of dramas focussing on Indigenous Australians and Australian history have appeared on the ABC, one of Australia's two public television channels. These dramas have different foci but all represent some aspects of Australian Indigenous history and how it interacts with 'mainstream' representations of Australian history. The four programs I will look at are Cleverman (Goalpost Pictures, 2016-ongoing), Glitch (Matchbox Films, 2015-ongoing), The Secret River (Ruby Entertainment, 2015) and Redfern Now (Blackfella Films, 2012), each of which engages with the past in a unique way.'
Source: Author's introduction.
'This article analyses three texts that feature Aboriginal soldiers or veterans of the Vietnam War as protagonists: the novel Not Quite Men, No Longer Boys (1999), the play Seems Like Yesterday (2001) and the Redfern Now television episode “The Dogs of War” (2013). In all three texts, military service in Vietnam inculcates among the protagonists sentiments constitutive of what Brendan Hokowhitu refers to as elite Indigenous masculinity—the mimicry and appropriation of white hegemonic masculinity. Constructing themselves as elite Indigenous males allows the Aboriginal soldiers/veterans to position themselves as superior to “other” Aboriginal males. Through the course of the texts, though, the protagonists come to realise that elite Indigenous masculinity is a myth because civilian (white) Australia will continue to judge them the same as other Aboriginal men. Through encounters with other Aboriginal men, the Aboriginal soldiers/veterans are able to reconceptualise their own masculinities and to accept the legitimacy of multiple Aboriginal masculinities.'
Source: Abstract.
