By Tom Ryan
Originally an Aboriginal mission station, Toomelah is a rundown township in northern New South Wales, near the Queensland border, populated by about 300 Gamilaroi people.
It serves as the location for the new film from Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds), whose mother grew up there. But with its decrepit demeanour - dilapidated housing, wasteland surroundings and general junkyard air - it's much more than mere background for the action.
A still from the film Toomelah.
Its borders are the boundaries of the 10-year-old protagonist's world and they're already closing in on him. What happens in this place and how its inhabitants go about their daily lives, Sen's use of the setting suggests, are logical extensions of its stricken appearance. Daniel (Daniel Connors) lives with his mostly absent mother (Dorothy Cubby) and is used to fending for himself.
His options are limited: he has no interest in school and has few friends, although he shyly fancies Tanitia (Danieka Connors, the young actor's twin sister). He spends most of his days wandering the streets and the only role models available are the local drug dealer (Christopher Edwards) and his no-hoper friends with their misogynist ways and lewd innuendo.
Very little happens here, although one day his aunt (Cindy Binge) turns up, a member of the stolen generation, bringing with her echoes of a past about which Daniel knows very little. When he's kicked out of class, he's sent to the library where there's an area devoted to the treatment of indigenous people in Australia after settlement, but while its significance might be clear to us, it eludes him.
Like the troubled boy (Lucas Yeeda) in Mad Bastards, he needs to connect with his heritage, but there appears to be little opportunity for him to do so. Daniel is the sum total of his experiences and the question is whether or not he can move beyond them. Working as writer, director, cinematographer, editor and composer, Sen shot Toomelah with a hand-held digital camera over five weeks, immersing us in its surroundings and Daniel's plight and only occasionally becoming heavy-handed in his depiction of Daniel's circumstances.