35mm The Fringe Dwellers (1986)

Beyond her home was the land of a million dreams

From award-winning Director Bruce Beresford (The Club, Puberty Blues), Fringe Dwellers is a gentle yet compelling film about the difficulties of being a person who truly belongs in no world but their own.

Trilby Comeaway (Kristina Nehm) is an Aboriginal teenager living in a squalid shantytown with her extended family who are divided between those more assimilated to the white world, like Trilby and her sister, and an older generation still attuned to the mythology of their culture.

A quietly ambitious girl, Trilby persuades her mother, Mollie (Justine Saunders), to move into a prosperous white neighborhood somewhat beyond their means but to Trilby's dismay, the entire extended family moves with them. With the white locals freely expressing their distaste for the new neighbors and Trilby's relationship with boyfriend Phil (Ernie Dingo) resulting in an unwanted pregnancy, things are not turning out how Trilby had imagined.

Rating

PG

Cast

Kristina Nehm, Justine Saunders, Bob Maza, Kylie Belling, Denis Walker, Ernie Dingo

Director

Bruce Beresford