Zita Wallace was taken from her Arrernte family at the age of eight. When she returned to her traditional community 43 years later she was rejected and labelled “a white devil”.

Aggie Abbott, an Arrernte woman and also a “half-caste”, was hidden from the Aboriginal Protector at the same time Zita was taken. Today she still has her law, her language and her culture but lives in abject poverty.

This is the remarkable tale of two women who have forged a new friendship and are taking the debate of the stolen generation “beyond sorry”.

52 minute documentary
Writer/Director: David Vadiveloo
Language: Eastern Arrernte

After 54 years living in the western world, Zita Wallace is moving house to live in a tin shed in the bush. Taken at the age of eight, rejected by her traditional family when she first returned, this is her last roll of the dice, a final chance to realise her dream of dying on her grandfathers’ land.

Beyond Sorry is an intimate, personal story told by two “half-caste” Aboriginal women, Zita and her “aunty” Aggie. Zita, brought up as a “whitefella” and Aggie, a traditional elder, offer us a unique window on the life that each other could have led. Beyond Sorry places front and centre these two lives and the comparison needed to address the burning question; “Would they have been better off staying with their families or were they better off being taken away?”  “Beyond Sorry” is a film that will challenge our understanding of identity at every turn.

56 years ago, Aggie Abbott’s mother heard about “the Welfare trucks” that were coming and had told her “half-caste” daughter to “go bush”. Zita, on the other hand, was convinced by missionaries to get on the truck. “They told us we were going shopping.

Aggie and Zita were separated for over fifty years. Today, together once again, they offer us a compelling perspective on what it is that we need to survive and what it is that we need to live.

At an age when most people are planning for retirement, Zita has left the toughest job of her life until last - to reconstruct her identity, her life and her history. We have recorded Zita’s move from the suburbs to the bush way out bush. Now with Aggie as her guide, Zita is learning everything she needs to know about being a traditional Aboriginal woman from how to cut, gut and cook a kangaroo to painting up and learning the Anthepe ceremony dance, a coming of age for every young Arrernte girl.

On the journey we will learn of the rejection Zita suffered when she first returned to her traditional family. We will see firsthand the pain that she and her “half caste” friends experienced when told they were “spirit people”, “white women”. And we will see and hear of the two years of preparation that led to her decision to return to the country of her grandfather.

“Beyond Sorry” reveals the complexity of emotional and social pressures that come to bear when an urban Aboriginal woman tries to return to the bush family she was taken from as a child. It is a story of cultural conflict, remarkable courage and generosity, of the ties that bind us to our kin, and of two women from the same land trying hard to reconcile two very different worlds.

Screenings
2005 Tri Continental Film Festival, Cape Town
2005 Adelaide International Film Festival
2005 Mead touring screenings, Russia
2005 Garma Festival, Gulkula NT
2004 ImageNation Film Festival
2004 Commonwealth Film Festival, UK
2004 Sydney International Film Festival
2004 Cape Town World Cinema Festival, Sth Africa
2003 Homelands Film and Art Festival, Australia
2003 Official Selection Margaret Mead Festival New York
2003 Selected for Margaret Mead travelling Festival - US-wide travelling film Festival
2004 Sydney Film Festival June
2004 Australian International Documentary Conference
2004 ImagineNative Film Festival - Vancouver
2003 Deckchair Film Festival, Darwin
2003 IMPARJA TV

Cast and Crew

Written & Directed by    David Vadiveloo
Produced by         David Vadiveloo and CAAMA Productions Pty Ltd
Cinematographer        Warwick Thornton
Editor & Post ProductionDavid Nixon
Sound Recordists    Vance Glynn
David Vadiveloo
Original Music        Michael Den Elzen
Additional camera     Jason Ramp
David Vadiveloo
Simon Price
Zhu-Lin O”Connor
David Nixon
Translations        Mary Flynn
Production Manager     Sonett Johnson
Production Coordinator    Lisa Stefanoff
& Still Photographer    Lisa Stefanoff
Production Assistants    Zhu-lin O”Connor
Robyn Nardoo
Interpreter        Carol Turner
Talent Appearing    Zita Wallace
Aggie Abbott
Ron Wallace
Executive Producers    Citt Williams
Beck Cole