Summary

This Australian Screen Classic is about the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara.

The 2002 film tells the story of Doris Pilkingtons mother, the then 14-year-old Molly Craig, her sister Daisy, aged 8, and cousin Gracie, aged 11, who were all forcibly removed from their families at Jigalong in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in 1931.

Taken to the Moore River Native Settlement, a mission on the western Australian coast some 2000 kilometres from home, they were to be trained as domestic servants.

Desperately home sick, Molly, Daisy and Gracie escaped, and following the rabbit-proof fence, they walked thousands of kilometres across desert back home, all the while being stalked by the authorities.

In this honest and frank account Larissa Behrendt finds much about this story that resonates: the need and desire to find ones home, ones sense of place, ones sense of self. This is undoubtedly a universal quest but for Aboriginal people taken from their families, as these children were, that search for home, that need to feel complete, is all the more powerful.

Behrendt offers her unique perspective on the Rabbit Proof Fence and examines what makes the story so integral to Australian film history.