Beneath Clouds
Clip 3: This is not your land
2 min 50 sec
Taken from the feature Beneath Clouds (2002)
Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.
This clip contains medium-level coarse language.
Curator’s clip description
Vaughn (Damien Pitt) and Lena (Danielle Hall) come to a cornfield. Both hungry, they decide to help themselves to the crop. The farmer catches them in the act. A heated exchange between Vaughn and the farmer leads to Lena questioning Vaughn’s motivations.
Curator’s notes
Vaughn, who says that the farmer stole the land in the first place, challenges the moral currency held by the farmer as owner of the land. The characters helping themselves to the corn excess that, in indigenous cultural society would have been shared, serves as a point of departure between indigenous and non-indigenous culture. The different historical perspective on land ownership is an ongoing one.
Romaine Moreton, curator
have teachers’ notes.
