Perkins chooses not to directly tackle that aspect of the frontier wars,but the human impact is very much front and centre. And given the often-confronting nature of the material,striking the right tone was crucial.
“The starting point is that this is not just an Indigenous story to tell,” she says. “Because in any war there are different sides. So even though I’m an Aboriginal person,I didn’t just want to tell the Aboriginal side. Non-Indigenous Australians are bound up in this as well,we all live in this country together.”
She’s hoping viewers will realise this history is a shared burden. “But I also really tried not to weaponise this,if that’s the right way of expressing it. I wanted to invite people in. That was my intention – to try and welcome people in to the story.”
The starting point is that this is not just an Indigenous story to tell.
Filmmaker Rachel Perkins
She also wanted to make clear that she wasn’t an objective observer. Each episode opens with her and her crew in shot. It’s clear that she is making a TV show,and that she is part of the story. It was important to her that the production was,in her words,“honest”.
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“I wanted to make it transparent,so people can see the construction of it,how it was made. It’s not like I’m an objective journalist. I was going on the exploration myself – there were things that I didn’t know,that were revealed to me in the process of researching and shooting.”
Many of those things were deeply personal. At the end of the three-part series Perkins listens to a recording of her grandmother’s voice,a recording she’d never heard before. She unearthed details of a heartbreaking family history. “I knew a lot about what happened in Tasmania because I’d made a film there,” Perkins says,“but some of the personal experiences of our own family I hadn’t fully grasped.”
The series is meticulously composed of input from Australia’s pre-eminent experts on the subject – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – as well as First Nations educators and descendants,and colonist descendants too. (There’s often quite a bit of cross-over between those categories.) And for people worried that they’re expected to feel guilty,the attitude of the non-Indigenous historians is instructive.
No one’s beating their breast but everyone is moved by these stories. Frequently they’re in awe of the courage and resourcefulness of the First Nations fighters. Mostly people are compassionate and curious. They’re wanting to further their own and other people’s understanding of this important aspect of Australian history.
Then the question becomes:what do we do next. “First we must hear it and receive it,” Perkins says. “Then what do we do about it? Right. You’ve been presented with this history. Now what do we do about it,in the time that we have? Obviously we can’t go back. So what do we learn from it,and what do we take forward?”
And Perkins feels that maybe this is a moment in time when more and more people are ready to hear,to learn,and to think deeply about those next steps.
“Certainly,in the movement towards truth-telling,treaty and voice to parliament,those are substantive,nation-changing political shifts that our country is right on the cusp of for the first time,” she says. “And that’s a very promising change. I myself,personally,think we’ve turned a corner in the big sweep of history. Where we might be ready to hear this stuff again.”
She hopes so. Because it’s not just important for the future of Australia and its people,black and white. It’s also an absolutely cracking yarn that everyone should know.
“Incredible characters doing amazing things – this story is chockers with it!” she says. And it’s a story she’s barely scratched the surface of. “Yes,it was hard to make. Yes,it’s difficult material. But the most difficult thing of all was that it (The Australian Wars) just cannot tell the scale and the epic nature of this story. All we could do is give the broad brushstrokes. But this isn’t the last of it. This is just the start of the conversation.”
The Australian Wars is on SBS and NITV,Wednesday,7.30pm.
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