Utopia: An inside story

CEO of the Ampilatwatja Health Clinic Dave Smith is interviewed by internationally renowned journalist John Pilger, for the film Utopia, which premieres in Australia in January 2014.

IN JANUARY 2014, the nation’s most famous ex-pat journalist John Pilger will launch his latest film in Australia. Two years in the making, Utopia is a feature length documentary that chronicles the ongoing plight of the First Australians and their fight for justice.

The film has a number of important themes. First, it serves as a testament to the struggle of Aboriginal people, and the truth that there has been a long resistance to the effects of invasion despite mainstream Australia’s determination to sanitize its past. Second, the film lambastes Australia for its failure to not only come to grips with its brutal history, but its frequent refusal to even acknowledge it. Thirdly, the film seeks to show that very little has changed since Pilger made his first film about Aboriginal Australia – Secret Country – in 1985. Utopia shines a light on the denial of justice to Aboriginal Australians – the withholding of basic rights like treaty and self-determination – but also the denial of basic services which all Australians expect as a right of citizenry.