Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows an encounter between Vinnie (Kelton Pell) and Franky (Bruce Hutchison) in which the two men learn that they are cousins. Vinnie is sitting in a park with an Elder making a sketch from a black-and-white photograph when Franky approaches with a photograph of a group of Indigenous women. Franky says his foster parents gave him the photograph when he turned 18 years old and told him that the women were his family. Vinnie recognises his mother in the photograph and the Elder tells the men that Vinnie and Franky’s mothers were sisters. Vinnie warmly embraces Franky, calling him ‘Cuz’.

Educational value points

• This clip depicts both Franky and Vinnie experiencing a mixture of emotions as Franky discovers his Indigenous family using a photograph that his foster parents gave him. Franky responds with some bitterness that ‘all I’ve got is a bit of paper’ when the Elder says that he knew his mother and grandparents. Franky’s face is at first expressionless when Vinnie, who had shown puzzlement and disbelief at the situation, suddenly laughs and hugs him. A smile then appears on Franky’s face as he gradually understands the meaning of Vinnie’s words ‘How’re you going, Cuz?’.

• In the clip Franky and Vinnie represent the losses experienced by many of the Stolen Generations and their families. Franky says that all he has is a ‘bit of paper’, not his family or community. Extended family and kinship ties are central to Indigenous identity and help define social relationships and obligations, as well as a person’s connection to and responsibility for the land. In each Indigenous community, heritage about kinship is passed on by Elders, and the older man is able to identify Franky’s family.

• The Elder refers to Franky’s mother as being fairer-skinned than Vinnie’s mother, and in doing so he passes on knowledge in the oral tradition. Her fairness, inherited by Franky, might explain why he was removed while Vinnie remained with his family. Indigenous children who were adopted or fostered by Anglo-Australian families tended to be ‘fair-skinned’. The government felt that children with light skin or of mixed European and Indigenous descent could be more easily assimilated through acculturation and intermarriage.

• The clip uses a range of techniques to tell the story of cousins finding each other. The background, which includes a big tree and traffic noises, situates the story in an urban setting. Through dialogue and the use of Franky’s photograph, the revelation of Franky’s kinship is made. The final use of the term ‘Cuz’ reflects the revealed relationship. Both ‘Cuz’ and ‘deadly’, also used in the clip, are Aboriginal English words.

• Confessions of a Headhunter is based on a short story by Archie Weller, an Indigenous novelist and playwright. Weller wrote the screenplay with director Sally Riley. The film won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Short Fiction Film in 2000. Weller, who grew up on a farm in south-western Western Australia, has published short stories and poems in a number of anthologies. His work focuses on issues such as racism, prejudice, police harassment and dispossession.