It’s A Long Road Back

Synopsis

This powerful documentary was made by Oomera (Coral) Edwards on Super 8mm film as a training exercise at the (then) Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra.

The film surveys the New South Wales policy of taking Aboriginal children from their families (Stolen Generations) and putting them in institutions run by the Aborigines Welfare Board. From 1883 to 1969, this policy deprived generations of children of their Aboriginal identity.

Taken from her family when 5 months old, Oomera was one of these children, and she discusses her own struggle to find her Aboriginal family and regain her Aboriginality.

The film also includes a moving interview with a former matron at an Aboriginal Welfare Home in Cootamundra, expressing her on-going concern that Aboriginal children were removed from their parents without any consultation or parental permission.

Oomera’s personal journey and her work in helping other families to re-unite is a central part of a longer documentary, Link-Up Diary (1987).