User Reviews

Sydney Film Festival 2023

An often moving and profound documentary about Australia's ancient and under-acknowledged history.

The film covers a lot of ground - there's many aspects to the Dark Emu story. So much so, that the project would have benefited from being a multi-episode series. The post screening talk revealed that this was considered during the project's genesis. But, the counter argument is that a tight 90-minute runtime might make the film more accessible and digestible.

What Uncle Bruce Pascoe's book and, now, this aesthetically beautiful doco has drawn our attention to, is the nuances and complexities of First Nations peoples, structures economical, agricultural and spiritual, were crushed by colonisers.

Clarke respectfully gives airtime to the counter arguments to Pascoe's controversial research which, from what the doco presents, largely boil down to semantics and straw man arguments.

This doco is hopefully a conversation starter. It will hopefully receive distribution that allows many Australians and overseas audiences to see it, as the screening was very much "preaching to the converted".

It seems tragic that we have so many ancient and constructed landmarks - that out-date that of Stone Henge, the Aztecs etcetera - that are not celebrated by us as a nation. You'd think this would appeal to our parochialism, but instead we ignore their age and significance in the name of politics, historical denial and colonial public relations.

Well done to everyone that worked on this project.

This documentary was amazing. I think the way to approach it is to suspend anything you feel like you know and be open minded about where it takes you. I had mixed feelings before this, and found myself profoundly sad and yet learned about the whole situation.

Seems to me like many people arguing against Dark Emu's findings are splitting hairs about the definitions of things. It seems to be true that Indigenous people were not just hunter gatherers (even according to those that disagree) but instead in a trick of language the "experts" argue that they are "super" hunter gatherers - seems like these "experts" are not happy to equate Indigenous ingenuity with western practices.

This story made me thing deeply about this and it was one of the best docos I've seen in a long time.

Congratulations to all involved in masterfully sharing the story of Dark Emu and for showcasing both the richness in that book and the sad controversy that surrounds it.

Bruce Pascoe is incredibly courageous, calm and dignified in the face of being challenged. We as a nation owe him a great deal for being a "truth-teller", shedding light and a lens on the way that our Indigenous people lived and how they cultivated the land for thousands of years. There is still so much to re-discover, re-educate, nurture and celebrate about our rich Indigenous culture and practices. Grateful to Bruce Pascoe for the critical role he has played in bringing to light the Indigenous perspective of their history and to the producers of this film for faithfully sharing both sides in fairness.

I'm sorry , but didn't Bruce Pascoe's own Family deny his claims to indigenous heritage? Well respected indigenous Leaders and scholars have declared his work as utter rubbish so too highly regarded Australian historians and scholars. How the ABC was conned into allowing this to go to production needs to be investigated when at least one of the producers were alerted by text a few years back that Pascoe's claims couldn't be validated. Makes a mockery of the Walkley Awards. Can't deny the quality of the production. Typical Daren Dale brilliance! But as for the content?? I hope BlackFella Films just stick to what they're best at next time . Genuine truth telling and gritty , authentic Australian drama.