John Pilger’s Epic New Film To Screen On Māori Television

John Pilger’s Epic New Film To Screen On Māori Television

UTOPIA, the extraordinary new film about the experiences of indigenous Australians by acclaimed filmmaker John Pilger, will air on Māori Television on Tuesday, September 2 at 8.30pm.

UTOPIA refers to a vast region in northern Australia north of Alice Springs and home to the oldest human presence on earth. It is also the poorest place in Australia.

“This film is a journey into that secret country,’ says Pilger. “It will describe not only the uniqueness of the first Australians, but their trail of tears and betrayal and resistance – from one utopia to another”.

Pilger, has been following the plight of indigenous Australians for the past 30 years and the evidence he produces is often deeply moving and shocking.

In UTOPIA, he begins his journey in Sydney and Canberra, where the national parliament rises in an affluent suburb called Barton, recently awarded the title of Australia’s most advantaged community.

Barton is named after Edmund Barton, the first Prime Minister of Australia, who in 1901 introduced the White Australia Policy, and declared “the doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to those who weren’t British and white-skinned”.

He made no mention of Australia’s original inhabitants, who were deemed barely human, unworthy of recognition in the first suburban utopia.

As Barton is the most advantaged part of Australia, Utopia is the most disadvantaged.

Over the course of the film, Pilger questions whether the 'lucky country' has inherited South African apartheid? And how could this happen in the 21st century? What role has the media played?

UTOPIA is both a personal journey and universal story of power and resistance and how modern societies can be divided between those who conform and a dystopian world of those who do not conform.

Tune in to Māori Television on Tuesday, September 2 at 8.30pm.

www.utopiajohnpilger.com

ENDS

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