John Pilger (2013). 'Utopia'
https://www.youtube.com/embed/HiaOMizO2Y4
Related: Alan Lowery, John Pilger (2013). 'Utopia' https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3335378/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(2013_film) "Utopia represents a long journey through the 'secret country' of John Pilger's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger homeland. It is his fourth film about Indigenous Australia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians the oldest, most enduring human presence on Earth. Released in 2013 and filmed over two years, Utopia breaks what amounts to a recurring national silence about the brutalising of Indigenous people. One of the film's striking elements is the trust given to Pilger by so many indigenous Australians to 'voice their voices'. ... Pilger takes a road journey from million-dollar properties in Sydney and Canberra to the ironically named Northern Territory region of Utopia, where communities are without basic services, such as fresh running water. In Darwin, he shows shocking footage of police routinely mistreating a seriously ill Aboriginal man who is left to die in a cell, his cries for help unheeded. A former prisons minister unselfconsciously describes 'racking and stacking' Aboriginal prisoners. A shadow Labor Party minister becomes abusive when Pilger asks him why, after 30 years in Parliament, he has not alleviated the poverty of his black constituents. Utopia also reveals, shockingly, a new 'stolen generation' of children taken from their mothers. ... The response to Utopia was unprecedented. The Australian premiere was attended by more than 4,000 people who filled the open space at The Block in Redfern, in the centre of Sydney, and watched the film on a large screen. Indigenous people came from all over Australia, many speaking their own language. As the credits rolled, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians stood together. This was replicated in towns and remote communities across the country. 'The atmosphere wherever the film has been shown,' said associate producer and academic Paddy Gibson, 'has been electric.' In Perth, the Noongar elder Robert Eggington wrote, 'Utopia will live for ever and be like a fire stick in the darkness for all generations to come the more you view it, the more you see it, we are proud of you.' In the five years since Utopia was released, the long-suppressed issue of a treaty has returned, however tenuously, to a national political agenda" (johnpilger.com). Example: "concentration camps" https://www.youtube.com/embed/HiaOMizO2Y4?start=105&end=129 Example: "Australia Day celebration 2013" https://www.youtube.com/embed/3LRx7C9bi8E?start=1516&end=1796 Related: http://trigg.gr/tag/OtheringEthnocentrism#91588B825902;S2 Bibliography: johnpilger.com. (n.d.). JohnPilger.com - the Films and Journalism of John Pilger. [online] Available at: https://johnpilger.com/ [Accessed 31 Jan. 2026].
