** PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER STUDIES **

In 1929 Alice Springs, Sam (newcomer Morris) is a farmhand at a cattle station run by Fred Smith (Neill) a Christian who believes in treating everyone – including ‘blackfellas’ like Sam and his wife – with respect. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the bitterly divided frontier town they populate.

When a boorish newcomer (Leslie) asks to borrow Sam, his wife and niece to help for a day, Fred makes the fatal mistake of agreeing. Before we know it, Sam has committed a violent act of self-defence and is forced to go on the run with his wife. In hot pursuit is a posse of vengeance-fuelled white men, led by a local police sergeant (Brown), intent on bringing Sam to justice one way or another.

Director Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah) makes a brutally powerful match between a shameful period in Australian history and the archetypes of a classic Western. Weaving in a series of meandering flashbacks and almost-subliminal glimpses of the future makes for a haunting experience that is immensely aided by Thornton pulling double duty as cinematographer – starkly contrasting the territory’s beauty against the ugliness of the acts that transpire there.