Synopsis
Jedda - Australian Screen Classics
$27.99
Published by Currency Press
Filmed in 1955 Jedda was the first Australian feature film to use Aboriginal actors in lead roles, the first to be filmed in colour and the first to be shown at the Cannes film festival
It tells the tragic story of a young Aboriginal girl of the Arunte tribe, adopted by a white woman, Sarah McCann, as a surrogate for her own baby who has died
She raises her as a white child, isolating her from Aboriginal contact
But when Marbuck, an Aboriginal man seeking work arrives on the station, Jedda is fascinated by him
Jedda was one of several popular melodramas of the post-World War II era that dealt with miscegenation
Mills explores these themes and the representation of the Australian Aborigine, while making comparisons to the Native American sub-genre of the Hollywood Western