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WHITEYS LIKE US
Year: 1999
Classification: Exempt - Ronin Recommends: G
Runtime: 52 min
Produced In: Australia
Directed By: Rachel Landers
Produced By: Tom Zubrycki
Language: English
Website: www.tomzubrycki.com
What goes on in a bland high school class room at Manly Community College for two hours on Wednesday nights represents a fascinating microcosm of how white Australians are dealing (or not dealing) with the Reconciliation process and the country's Indigenous past and present.
All over Australia groups of people are coming together to participate in eight week Reconciliation study circles. These circles are initiated by the Reconciliation Council in 1991 with the "aim of improving relations between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians".
This documentary focuses on one such study circle through its eight sessions and examines the impact the Reconciliation process has on the participants' lives. The machinations of this group and the individual responses to it provide a glimpse of how Australians have reached this difficult, critical, and complex nexus of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations and how 'ordinary' non-Indigenous Australians grapple personally with the issues this evoked by the process.
Follow this link to view clips from Australian Screen: australianscreen.com.au/titles/whiteys-like-us/