Image: Shanika Cole in Sweet Country. Image courtesy SBS.
Some might call this the perfect Australia Day film, one which acknowledges many of the contradictions and complexities of our colonial history. Warwick Thornton’s multi-award-winning Western is based on a true story. Set in the 1920s in the Northern Territory, it follows an Indigenous farm hand, Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris) and his wife Lizzie (Natassia Gorey Furber) who become embroiled in a white pastoralist’s (Ewen Leslie) quest to punish an Indigenous boy (played by twins Tremayne and Trevon Doolan) for an alleged crime. Despite the efforts of Sam’s kind Christian employer, Fred Smith (Sam Neill), the local head of police Fletcher (Bryan Brown) is set on his dogged pursuit of justice, which sees the film unfold against the beauty and brutality of Australia’s outback.
