Charlie's Country is a 2013 Australian drama film directed by Rolf de Heer. It was selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where David Gulpilil won the award for Best Actor. It was also screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and awarded the Best Fiction Prize and the Youth Jury Prize at the 2015 International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva.
The film was selected as the Australian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.
Plot
Charlie, an Aboriginal man who lives in Arnhem Land paints tree barks and fishes barramundi fish, all the while feeling out of place in an Australia which is no longer his. He laments the loss of his culture in modern Australia. After his spear is confiscated by the police, who think it is a weapon, he decides to leave his urban Aboriginal community and go back to the bush, his "Mother Country." He falls ill and is rushed to the hospital in Darwin. He discharges himself, then befriends an Aboriginal woman and buys alcohol illegally for other Aboriginals, and he gets arrested. As a result, he is sent to prison. When he gets out, he agrees to pass on traditional dances from his generation to young Aboriginal boys, fearing the loss of their cultural identity.
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