Rachel Perkins Movies

In this lively musical comedy drama set in the late '60s, Willie (Rocky McKenzie) is a 16-year-old living in Broome, an Aboriginal community on the western coast of Australia. Willie is an easygoing kid who doesn't ask for much from life beyond enjoying time with his friends and getting a date with Rosie (Jessica Mauboy), a pretty girl who attends the same church. But Willie's mother thinks he should be following a more responsible path, and convinces him to transfer to a Catholic boarding school for boys in Perth. It doesn't take long for Willie to run afoul of Father Benedictus (Geoffrey Rush), the school's iron-willed headmaster, and Willie runs away. Stranded in Perth, Willie is befriended by Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo), a streetwise character who lived in Broome as a youngster. Uncle Tadpole offers to help Willie get back home, and they hit the highway, hitchhiking back to Broome and catching rides with a handful of colorful strangers, including Teutonic tourist Slippery (Tom Budge) and flower child Annie (Missy Higgins). But as Willie and Uncle Tadpole make their way across the continent, Father Benedictus is in hot pursuit, determined not to let a truant slip from his grasp. Bran Nue Dae was adapted from the hit stage musical by Jimmy Chi that was a major box-office success and multiple award winner in Australia during the early '90s; the film version received its word premiere at the 2009 Melbourne Film Festival, where it received the Audience Award for Best Film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Australian singer and songwriter Paul Kelly stars in (and wrote part of the musical score for) this unusual musical, which combines folk and country influences with the aboriginal sounds of the Outback to tell the story of a lost child and the divergent efforts to find her. A simple farmer (Paul Kelly) and his wife (Kaarin Fairfax) are the proud parents of a beautiful little girl (Memphis Kelly). One night, Father tells the girl a bedtime story in which dreamers answer the siren song of the moon; fascinated by the story, the restless girl wanders out of the house in the night to follow the moon, and in the morning her parents discover she is gone. After the father reports his daughter missing, the authorities put together a search party, including Albert (Kelton Pell), an Aborigine police offer with remarkable tracking abilities. The farmer, however, is a prejudiced man, and objects to having a black man on the search team, no matter what his abilities may be. Offended, Albert leaves the police force behind, and sets out to find the girl on his own; soon, the girl's mother joins him, convinced that Albert's knowledge is more valuable than her husband's ignorance. Produced for Australian television, One Night the Moon received its American premier at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi