'Gods of Wheat Street' has been described as an Aboriginal 'Neighbours' or 'Home and Away.' But on set, we were calling it 'Black to the Rafters.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In the streets through which we passed, I must own the houses in general struck me as if they were dark and gloomy, and yet at the same time they also struck me as prodigiously great and majestic.
I lived for a couple of years when I was 9 years old on beautiful Aboriginal sacred land in a town of a thousand people in northwestern Australia. It's where the Aborigines are still very connected to their culture, the Dreamtime culture. It was really quite a special experience.
It had never occurred to me that my colour - or lack of it - was an issue for some people, but then I moved to Sydney, and apparently it was. People look at me and don't see what they think is a typical Aboriginal. Thankfully, my mother raised me well in knowing where I come from and who I am, and I'm proud of that.
People look at me, and they don't see what they think is a typical Aboriginal. I always thought I'd be the white person in a black play.
A lot of my identity as an Aboriginal person is about family.
'Greek Street' is a very strange beast. I think of it as 'The Long Good Friday' meets 'Agamemnon.' A way of using those fantastically rich stories from Greek tragedy to take a look at our world and to explore some of the things I think about this world.
My grandparents told endless stories about the town they were from. It became an almost mythic place.
It's a really important thing for Aboriginal people to remember how stories are told and the power of stories, and make it an important feature in our world again.
As a Midlander and a big walker, I'd always loved ridge and furrow fields, the plough-marked land as it was when it was enclosed. It is the landscape giving you a story of lives that ended with the arrival of sheep.
I was shocked when I moved to Sydney how very few indigenous people I came across. And so when I go to places like Maroubra or Redfern or Waterloo or Erskineville, I feel more at home because of the people I'm around - anywhere I can see a face that reflects someone that looks like my family, I feel much more at home.
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