Yellow Fella
Clip 2: Between worlds
2 min 54 sec
Taken from the documentary Yellow Fella (2005)
Original title classification not known – 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 low-level coarse language.
Curator’s clip description
Tommy tells us about the massacre on the plains, Aboriginal peoples executed by stockmen. This is woven into his recount off his experience as a young boy – being called ‘white boy’ by the blackfellas, and ‘black boy’ by the white fellas.
Curator’s notes
A road illuminated by car headlights in the thick of night is haunting. Tommy Lewis’s voice-over tells of the story about the massacre of family members, which he has just heard for the first time. We get the sense that Tommy’s questions about his father is one that taps into issues of accountability and reciprocity, as he wonders about what kind of man his father was. Lewis’s identity seems to be imbued with the struggle between white and black cultures for moral authority, and Tommy looks inward to evoke answers to these beguiling questions.
have teachers’ notes.
