Antinuclear

Film Utopia to be shown on SBS1 on Saturday 31 May

A nightmare in Utopia The West Australian, 28 May 14, If Australia is one of the world’s wealthiest countries, with a standard of living that is the envy of people around the globe, how can so many of its citizens live in abject poverty?
That is the  question fuelling Utopia, award-winning filmmaker John Pilger’s latest investigation into Australia’s colonial past and the ongoing treatment of Aboriginal people – which has its television premiere on Saturday on SBS1…….

The result is a powerful and confronting look at life away from Australia’s cities and beaches, which has polarised audiences since its cinematic release in UK in November and Australia in January.

While Australian of the Year Adam Goodes has described Utopia as “a must-see for all Australians”, Utopia has also drawn criticism in the media for a perceived lack of balance and negativity. Pilger dismissed the criticism and said he felt the overwhelming majority review for Utopia had been positive.

“More than 4000 people attended its premiere in Redfern and as the credits rolled they all stood in tribute,” he said.

“In fact, Utopia is a celebration of Aboriginal resistance. The indigenous people I interview are heroic, having achieved extraordinary things against the odds and in that respect, Utopia is a very positive film.”
Pilger said while he had received complete cooperation from the Aboriginal communities who took part in Utopia, getting politicians to agree was more difficult and his request to interview Prime Minister Tony Abbott was turned down.
Pilger’s dismay at the lack of progress made over the past three decades since he visited similar communities for his 1985 documentary The Secret Country, and the apparent inability of successive federal governments to solve the problems is palpable.

He pointed to the recent Federal Budget’s $534 million cuts to indigenous programs as an example of the Government’s lack of commitment to Aboriginal communities.

“One of the most disgraceful budget cuts is the decimation of what was left of the indigenous languages program,” he said. “Teachers in remote communities will lose their jobs. The Aboriginal Legal Service is being cut back.

“If Australian governments take anything seriously, it is their unrelenting attacks on this country’s first people.”

Pilger said he believed a treaty between “those whose land was stolen . . . and those who stoleit” was the solution to inequalities explored in Utopia. “Such a treaty, negotiated between equals, would be a bill of rights to health, education, land and dignity – everything that most non-Indigenous Australians take for granted,” he said.
“If that does not happen, if we do not give back to the first people their nationhood, we can never claim our own.” https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/23910255/a-nightmare-in-utopia/

May 29, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Audiovisual