Donald, Stephanie (2019) Shaming Australia Cinematic responses to the “Pacific Solution”. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 18 . pp. 70-90. ISSN 2009-4078
Full content URL: https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18
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Item Type: | Article |
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Item Status: | Live Archive |
Abstract
This article analyses Australian audio-visual treatments of contemporary refugee experiences of the Australian government’s “Pacific Solution,” which was introduced after the Tampa affair in 2001. I call into question the conventional premise of much documentary filmmaking, that the moving photographic image can reveal the reality of that experience (indexicality). That approach is exemplified, I argue, by Eva Orner’s award-winning film, Chasing Asylum (2014), which aspired to reveal the truth about conditions in the Regional Processing Centre on Nauru and thereby to shock Australian audiences into demanding a change in government policy. The problem with the film is that its reliance on the norms of documentary has the unintended consequence of silencing the detainees and reducing them to the status of vulnerable and victimised objects. The article concludes by comparing Chasing Asylum with an installation by Dennis Del Favero, Tampa 2001 (2015), which exemplifies a nonrepresentational, affect-based aesthetic that says less in order to achieve more in evoking complex refugee stories of dispossession or disappearance.
Keywords: | Refugee film-making, Vulnerability, Indexicality, Offshore detention, Australian documentary, Pacific Solution studies |
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Subjects: | T Eastern, Asiatic, African, American and Australasian Languages, Literature and related subjects > T830 Australasian Society and Culture studies P Mass Communications and Documentation > P303 Film studies |
Divisions: | College of Arts > Lincoln School of Film & Media > Lincoln School of Film & Media (Film) |
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ID Code: | 34688 |
Deposited On: | 22 Feb 2019 11:34 |
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