Reading: Binawee by Sam Saunders

Script Alive! is a unique opportunity giving Victorian writers the chance to have their feature scripts read in public by a professional cast who have rehearsed with the writer and director.

Sam Saunder’s un-produced screenplay, Binawee, will be the next live reading for viewing pleasure.

Having been raised on an Aboriginal mission in a remote area of Queensland and being the first Manager of the Indigenous Branch at the Australian Film Commission in Sydney, Saunder’s script is bound to be well-researched and thoughtfully crafted.

Set in 1945, the story opens at an Aboriginal mission in Queensland, a kind of reformatory where the crime is being black.  Here a fifteen year old Aboriginal girl’s life changes abruptly when she is sent to work as a domestic servant in a white household in Victoria. 

After a chance encounter with a senile wealthy white matron and deaf and dumb white man, she finds an unusual connection with lonely 10 year old grandson, Benjamin.  Despite the chasm of class and race that separates them, the two find a way to reach out to each other and in doing so find the courage to cope with their difficult lives.

Film Victoria and a cast of some of Australia’s best will bring this story to life Thursday July 17 at Cinema Nova.