Charlie's Country

Synopsis

Charlie lives in a remote Aboriginal community in northern Australia, where government intervention in the culture's traditional way of life has left many of the residents, Charlie included, feeling powerless to control their destinies. When his gun and hand-crafted spear are confiscated, leaving him nothing to hunt with, Charlie defiantly heads into the bush to live the old way. Battling both the elements and his own aging body, Charlie is eventually forced back to the community and, later, to the provincial capital of Darwin. What he finds there proves to be just the beginning of a long road back home.

One of the most effortlessly charismatic actors in cinema, possessed of a vibrant physicality and a face whose lines and wrinkles only increase its beauty, David Gulpilil (who won the Best Actor award in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival) plays Charlie with both impish humour and affecting pathos. Recounting Charlie's journey from tragedy to triumph with rigorous simplicity, director de Heer wisely relies on the magnetic presence of his star to anchor every frame of this lovely, soulful film.

Screening in collaboration with the Human Rights Film Festival Zurich  www.humanrightsfilmfestival.ch 
For further details, please visit  the Filmpodium website http://www.filmpodium.ch/reihen-uebersicht/55394/human-rights-film-festival-zurich