''Short Changed'' is a 1986 Australian film directed by
George Ogilvie
George Buchan Ogilvie (5 March 1931 – 5 April 2020) was a prolific Australian theatre director
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production ...
based on a script by
Aboriginal writer
Bob Merritt, who described it as a "black/white ''
Kramer vs Kramer
''Kramer vs. Kramer'' is a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel of the same name. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry.
It tells the stor ...
''".
[Mary Colbert, "Positive action: Bob Merritt, playwright and screenwriter", ''Cinema Papers'', May 1985 p24]
Plot
After spending six years in
the bush
"The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia and New Zealand where it is largely synonymous with ''backwoods'' or '' hinterland'', referring to a natural undeveloped area. The fauna and flora contained within this ...
, Stuart, a young Aboriginal man, is trying to get in contact with his nine-year-old son, who lives with his white mother and grandfather in a well-to-do area, goes to a
Christian Brothers school, and is unaware of his father's existence.
Cast
The cast included a number of Merritt's
Eora Centre students,
[ among others.]
Production
Merritt started working on the script in 1981 and wanted to direct himself. However he was worried about getting the project financed with him as director and instead decided to work with George Ogilvie, had directed Merritt's play ''The Cake Man
''The Cake Man'' is a 1975 play by Aboriginal Australian writer Bob Merritt, notable for being the first play written by an Indigenous Australian person to be published, televised and to tour out of Australia. A telemovie was made of a 1977 p ...
'' in 1976,[David Stratton, ''The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry'', Pan MacMillan, 1990 p205-207][
]
Reception
The film was not a box-office success, but it remains notable as one of the first films by an Aboriginal writer. National Film & Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...
curators later described it as a depiction of "the daily struggle for dignity of a contemporary black man caught between two worlds", and called it "a successful collaboration between an Indigenous writer and a non-Indigenous director".[
Critic ]David Stratton
David James Stratton (born 10 September 1939) is an English-Australian award-winning film critic, as both a journalist and interviewer, film historian and lecturer and television personality and producer.
Life and career
Born in Trowbridge, ...
wrote that it was "an excellent film which presents a very vital problem with great sympathy, understanding and fairness... one of the most interesting, low-budget, urban Australian films to have come out in recent years".[
]
Awards
The film was nominated in several categories in the 1986 AFI Awards, but did not win any of them.
References
External links
*
''Short Changed''
at Australian Screen Online
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...
''Short Changed''
at Oz Movies
{{Films and television series about Indigenous Australia
Australian drama films
1986 drama films
Films scored by Chris Neal (songwriter)
1980s English-language films
Films about Aboriginal Australians