Cirrus@Austlit

'Australia was founded by the English with one clear purpose - to create a prison island. Over 200 years later, not much has changed; rather than housing criminals from England, we are filling our jails with our mist vulnerable and disadvantaged population.

It's time for change.

For those in mainstream Australia, this crisis has felt like an overnight catastrophe linked to alcohol and unemployment. But the reality behind Aboriginal incarceration tells a different story, a story that dates back well beyond the advent of modern prisons, government programs and support services.

Incarceration Nation will tell that story – the tragic story of the systematic injustice and oppression of Aboriginal people since European settlement. This film will take its audience on a journey back into our dark past and shine a spotlight on incarceration from an Aboriginal perspective. Many things have changed, but many stay the same.'

(Source : Incarceration Nation Website)

'First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world's greatest empire.

'Over seven episodes, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history.

'The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation.' Source: www.sbs.com.au (Sighted 27/09/2008).