Black Australia in film festival spotlight

SYDNEY, May 4 (Reuters) Australia's indigenous film festival ''Message Sticks'' starting today offers a snapshot of contemporary aboriginal life, from black lesbians in an outback town to an adopted Aborigine seeking his mother in the city.

The free festival will screen some 30 films at the Sydney Opera House over three days, with a package of 13 short films by first-time indigenous directors titled ''A Bit of Black Business''.

Unlike other indigenous film festivals around the world, only indigenous directors can screen films at ''Message Sticks''.

''Often you see a lot of work by non-indigenous filmmakers about indigenous people. We want to support indigenous authorship and profile indigenous directors,'' Rachel Perkins, co-curator of the festival, told Reuters.

Perkins said there were only about 15 to 20 indigenous directors working in the country's film industry.

But the success of ''Message Sticks'', now in its sixth year, is helping to nurture young black directors, said Perkins, adding that the launch of a new indigenous pay-TV service later in 2007 would also encourage black filmmakers.

''Message Sticks'' will open with the feature film ''Crocodile Dreaming'' starring Australia's best known aboriginal actor David Gulpilil. The film, set in Arnhem Land in the outback Northern Territory, tells the story of two estranged half-brothers who are reconciled through their dead mother's crocodile spirit.

But many of the films do not deal with traditional aboriginal issues of land and custom, but cover contemporary issues.

''Nigger Lovers'' tackles bigotry and prejudice in a story about an Aborigine's seven year battle to remove the word Nigger from the name of a sports stadium. The stadium was named after a non-aboriginal football player whose nickname was Nigger.

The documentary ''A Sister's Love'' follows Aborigine Rhoda Roberts, a high profile arts director, as she travels home to confront the brutal murder of her twin sister, eight years after her body was found in a remote forest.

The five minute film ''Bloodlines'' is set in a city apartment as a young aboriginal male, adopted as a child, anguishes on whether to telephone his real mother.

While ''Destiny In Alice'', directed by a lesbian Aborigine, examines what it is like to have an inter-racial lesbian relationship in the conservative outback town of Alice Springs.

''Alice has this disproportionately large number of lesbians. I don't know why but it does. It is a red-neck town, but there is a pocket of progressive people there,'' explains Perkins.

''The film explores the relationship between black and white lesbians. It is about cross-cultural relationships, with the added complication it is a lesbian relation.'' REUTERS SLD PM0950