Australian
Screen

Endangered is a courageous as well as humorous documentary about the plight of being Indigenous and single. It covers serious issues with a light touch, but without compromising the integrity of its subject matter. The theme of the Loved Up series has produced documentaries that have asked and answered questions pertaining to the universality of love.

In Endangered, the topic of love is used to explore the consequences of the government’s assimilation practices – the issue of Indigenous identity and the strength of this cultural and philosophical world view being passed on to the next generation. It also looks at how indigenous mortality and morbidity rates affect the ability of Indigenous singles to find another indigenous person as a partner. The film identifies the reason behind indigenous peoples partnering up with other Indigenous singles as being rooted in a desire for the physiological and cultural continuum of indigenous culture, but its final message is that when it comes to love, race is not a deterrent either.

For more information on the statistics referred to by the filmmaker, see also Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice and The Medical Journal of Australia.