High Ground
Stephen Maxwell Johnson’s long-awaited follow-up to Yolngu Boy is the most powerful and engrossing Australian film of the year. It takes an unflinching look at the brutal facts of white settlement, facts that we are still coming to terms with. A massacre of Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land in 1919 leaves deeply damaged survivors: Baywara, a warrior consumed with anger and intent on revenge; Travis, a white man with an uneasy conscience and no way out, and Gutjuk, the boy caught between two cultures. This is a film with all the breathtaking beauty and savage ugliness of this country. It is rich in dramatic tension driven by taut, understated performances by newcomer Jacob Junior Nayinggul, Simon Baker, and Jack Thompson in his best role for many years. “urgent and stinging” (Variety)
Maggie Miles
Witiyana Marika
Greer Simpkin
Stephen Maxwell Johnson
Jacob Junior Nayinggul
Witiyana Marika
Jack Thompson