Movies
Green Bush
Synopsis
Every night, Indigenous DJ Kenny hosts the Green Bush show for Aboriginal inmates and their families. Isolated at the station, he takes requests from those on the inside and out while at the same time coping with the results of a wild night outside and learning his place in the circle of violence.
Green Bush is based on Warwick Thornton's real-life experience as a DJ in Alice Springs and celebrates an era of music, working for the cause and getting things done. But not in the way you would expect.
Green Bush made me a lot stronger as a writer-director.
— Warwick Thornton
[Green Bush is] a film that crackles with the music of politics, humanity, ideas and humour as it tells the story of a man's daily struggle to sustain his fragmented community and keep the pain at bay.
— Berlin International Film Festival award notes
Details
- Cast
- Ted Egan Jangala - old man Tjipli
Audrey Napanangka Martin - Rose
David Page - DJ Kenny
Leo Jampinjinpa Wayne - Steven - Release dates
- January 2005, Sundance Film Festival
- Video/DVD release date
- January 2011; digitally remastered 21 October 2021
- Awards
- Panorama Best Short Film award: 2015 Berlin International Film Festival Best Fiction Over 15 Minutes, The Rouben Mamoulian Award, The SBS Language Services Award: 52nd Sydney International Film Festival
- Rating
- PG - Parental guidance
- Distributor
- Ronin Films
- Soundtrack
- A collection of Aboriginal music recorded in Alice Springs by CAAMA Music during the eighties and nineties.
- Notes
Green Bush is part of the Dramatically Black series (an initiative of the Indigenous Unit of the AFC and SBS Independent).
More movies by Warwick Thornton:
- Photographic Memory: A Portrait of Mervyn Bishop (1999)
- Country Song (2008)
- Yeperenye Federation Festival: The Road Ahead Concert (2003)
- Rosalie's Journey (2003)
Warwick Thornton recalls what led to Green Bush: "Where I grew up in Alice I was a DJ for a radio station. The station began a film unit and so I watched people pack cameras and equipment into cars and take off to make films. I was alone at the radio station and I thought that I really wanted to go with them. That's how it started, I made a film called Green Bush which is basically about that time."
Green Bush marks Bangarra Dance Theatre's David Page film acting debut in a leading role.
The movie was filmed around Alice Springs, NT.
Watch now or find a DVD/BlueRay copy
- Try also
- eBay,
- National Library of Australia,
- SBS on Demand
Browse a list of Aboriginal film suppliers and distributors
Other films by Warwick Thornton
- 1996Pay Back
- 2002Mimi
- 2003Rosalie's Journey
- 2005The Old Man and the Inland Sea
- 2007Tnorala – Baby Falling
- 2007Nana
- 2008Dark Science
- 2009Samson & Delilah
- 2010Art + Soul
- 2013The Turning: Big World
- 2013The Darkside
- 2017We Don't Need A Map
- 2017Sweet Country
- 2019The Beach
- 2020Mystery Road (TV series, Season 2)
- 2021Firebite
- 2023The New Boy
- 2025Wolfram
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