Reckoning

The Uluru Statement from the Heart’s call for voice, truth-telling and treaty makes it clear that the systemic relationship between Indigenous and settler Australians remains unresolved. The Voice Referendum indicated that many Australians see First Nations people and concerns as peripheral to their everyday lives. But beneath that view lies a deal of uncertainty, confusion and curiosity. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’ is a common reaction to learning the truth about our history.

From an Indigenous perspective ‘sovereignty was never ceded or extinguished’. How then do the rest of us square our being here with the fact that those who cared for this land for some 60,000 years were dispossessed? Twenty years of ‘reconciliation’ has failed to change much. Will truth-telling turn out to be yet another iteration of First Nations victimhood? Reckoning will explore these questions and offer practical models of how to approach responsibility for the past and the persistence of injustice.

In making Reckoning we aim to provide identification for our audience with us as the filmmakers, by our personal participation in challenging ‘the great Australian silence’. We aim to bring viewers to acknowledge the myth of the ‘peaceful settlement’ of Australia and confront the uncomfortable questions that follow in a way that doesn’t perpetuate disempowering feelings of guilt. In the spirit of truth-telling called for by the Uluru Statement the film will embrace both-sides-storytelling and model a way forward which an audience as broad as the population of this continent can buy into. It will offer agency in addressing the past by acting in the present.

Reckoning will contribute to changing attitudes among Australians by sharing contemporary evolving historiography, Indigenous knowledge and models of action taken up by participants in the film. The impact campaign will provide impetus and resources for progress in Indigenous-settler relations – in educational, advocacy and political circles and organisations. It aims to provide models for change and encourage their take-up throughout the country.
Specific impact goals include:
A national cinema release tied to a publicity and promotion campaign (incl social media); Premiere of Reckoning at a major Australian film festival followed by targeted international festival release; TV and/or streaming acquisition (longer or shorter versions as appropriate); Community screenings in collaboration with relevant national, regional and local orgs dedicated to First Nations development; Educational distribution through a major distributor, including study guides; and, a dedicated website.

There is a panel of advisers to the film, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Members include Dr Julia Hurst, First Nations deputy director of the University of Melbourne’s Australian Centre, historian Prof Henry Reynolds, former Yoorrook Justice Commissioner Kevin Bell AO KC, psychologist Dr Helen Thomas and, until her recent sad and untimely death, historian Prof Lyndall Ryan. EP and Reckoning collaborator Steve Kinnane, a Marda Marda writer, filmmaker and activist from Perth, is also providing cultural advice. As we work with specific communities, key representatives will be drawn into the advisory panel and the film will be made collaboratively with all participants (Ethical and Cultural Protocols document available on request).

The primary response which Reckoning will hope to provoke is that audience members examine their own position on Indigenous settler relationships and the challenge of the proposal that ‘we all live on stolen land’. Through asking what action they might personally take in response, we are seeking to change the audience rather than spark it to advocate, although that may follow. Accepting that we all have agency in resolving Indigenous settler relations in this country in line with the Uluru Statement, audience members can borrow from the models demonstrated by participants in the film or develop their own. They will also be able to participate in the impact strategy accompanying the film, for example by hosting screenings, working for policy change, engaging with social media or simply learning about the Aboriginal history of the particular land on which they live.