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Airdate: Utopia

Filmmaker John Pilger investigates the division between disadvantaged Indigenous communities and affluent city societies.

2014-05-16_1351Don’t let the title deceive you, there are a number of Utopia projects in the air lately: one is a satire from Working Dog coming to ABC, another is a US reality series but the first is an indigenous documentary from filmmaker John Pilger which will air on SBS.

Pilger travels to Darwin, Western Australia and outback New South Wales, looking at the division between rural and city standards and concludes that Australia is failing its Indigenous people.

Drawing on his long association with Indigenous Australians, Utopia is Pilger’s investigation into Australia’s colonial past and wealthy present. It sets out to break the stereotypes of the first people of Australia.

The film’s title refers to the vast region in the Northern Territory known as Utopia, one of the most disadvantaged parts of Australia. Pilger contrasts the poor Indigenous community living there with the conditions of affluent Australian suburbs in Sydney and Canberra.

Pilger travels to Darwin, then to Western Australia and to the outback of New South Wales, where he explores the high rate of Indigenous people imprisoned, the low average life expectancy, and the prevalence of preventable diseases and malnutrition among Indigenous communities.

He argues that Australia, one of the richest countries on earth, is failing its Indigenous people, and that tourists have no idea that their “resorts” have a brutal black history.

Utopia is both a personal journey and a universal story of power and resistance, of how modern societies can be divided between those who conform and the dystopian world of those who do not.

The film polarised viewers following its cinematic release, and now Australian television audiences have the opportunity to see Utopia for themselves.

John Pilger will be online after the program for a special web Q and A with viewers – people can ask their questions at sbs.com.au/utopia or use #utopiaSBS

8.35pm, Saturday 31 May on SBS ONE.

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