Willaberta Jack [from the CAAMA Collection]

2015

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Summary

This is a true story of the Northern Territory in the 1920s when it was Australia's last frontier - rugged and harsh. Willaberta Jack and Harry Henty were both cattlemen - one Aboriginal, one white. Henty was a returned veteran of World War One who took up a station near Hatches Creek. Henry was regarded as an aggressive and hard man who would often beat his Aboriginal station hands and put them in chains. Tracking a runaway stockman in 1929, Henty wrongly accused Willaberta Jack of protecting the escapee. Jack was a proud stockman who was the trusted manager of a neighbouring station. Henty attempted to force his way into the house of the absent station-owner to look for the escapee and in the ensuing fracas, Henty was shot and killed. Willaberta Jack, fearing unjust treatment under white law, vanished into the bush with his wife. Jack eluded search parties for several months before giving himself up to the police. He was arrested and taken to Darwin in chains for trial. This atmospheric re-telling of Willaberta Jack's story, and the tragic aftermath of his trial, is a riveting account of the harshness of outback life at that time, and of the perils of being a black man who challenged the white man's dominance. The film was supported through the Australian Government's programme for the Maintenance of Indigenous Language and Records, through the Department of Communication, Information Technology and the Arts.