Cirrus@Austlit

'The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, 2012) opens in an idyllic rural setting. A group of young Aboriginal girls run home across the paddocks in the fading evening light to sing for a gathering of family and friends. But this benign atmosphere rapidly switches to terror as white Australian Government officials arrive on the scene and forcibly remove one of the girls from the Cummeraganja Mission community. It is the late 1960s, and State and Federal Government "child protection" policies allow the removal of so-called "half-caste" Aboriginal children from their families, leaving a devastating and traumatic legacy that the film goes on to address.' (Author's introduction)