This clip is from a documentary about the Indigenous participants in the 2005 Tattersall’s Finke Desert Race. It starts with aerial footage of cars and buggies (quads) racing on a dirt road to a soundtrack of heavy metal music. The next scene shows competitor Warwick Thornton speaking to camera about his strategy for racing, his pleasure in participating in the race and his awareness of the need to become healthier, particularly because, as he explains, Indigenous men are at risk of heart attack from their 30s, the youngest of any group worldwide.

Educational value points

• The 460-km two-day race held on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend is an off-road car, motorcycle and buggy race through desert country from south of Alice Springs to the small Aputula (Finke) community and back again. Up to 10,000 spectators camp along the track as more than 300 motorcycles and 90 cars compete at speeds of up to 200 km an hour over rough terrain of ‘thousands of corrugations, dips, washouts and rises, known colloquially as “whoops”’ (http://www.nt.gov.au).
• Top riders take about 4 hours in total to complete what has been called the richest and most difficult off-road race in the southern hemisphere, which now awards two prizes annually, one for bikes and one for cars and buggies, each of $10,000. As well as the publicity generated by the race, local businesses have ownership of the event, which generates income for the region.
• Warwick Thornton (Kaytetye), interviewed in the clip, is also a filmmaker. He is the director and writer of Green Bush, winner of Best Short Film in the Panorama Section of the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Thornton’s mother was one of the founders of Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and as a young man Thornton worked on a number of the organisation’s radio and film productions.
• Thornton’s awareness of the prevalence of heart attacks within the Indigenous community is borne out by The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Report (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005), which indicates that the death rate for Indigenous people aged 25 to 44 from cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease, stroke and hypertensive disease) is 12 to 17 times higher than for non-Indigenous people. Across all age groups cardiovascular disease accounts for 27 per cent of Indigenous male deaths.
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005 report found that while the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease are the same for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous population, the prevalence of risks was much higher in Indigenous people, reflecting their broader social and economic disadvantages. The risk factors include smoking, physical inactivity, social isolation, depression and lack of social support.
• Black and Dusty (2005) was produced by CAAMA, an organisation established in 1980 to promote Indigenous culture, language, dance and music and to provide training and employment opportunities for Indigenous people. CAAMA includes a film and television production company, radio network, recording studios, a record label and is a major shareholder in the Alice Springs-based Imparja Television.

The film shows that participation in the race could be the starting point for transformation in the lives of young people who are susceptible to the health ailments that Thornton talks about in this clip.

Black and Dusty Synopsis

A documentary about the Indigenous participants of the 2005 Tattersalls Finke Desert Race.

Curator's Notes

The Finke Desert Race tests both the body and the mind in putting the contestants through a gruelling race from Alice Springs to the community of Finke 229 km away. The contestants stay overnight and then do the return trip the next day. The race itself may seem innocuous, but the older participants speak of inspiring younger people to get involved in something and life itself.

There is lots of footage of vehicles tearing through the dusty outback, and its great to watch a film of this genre and hear Indigenous languages – in this case Southern Arrernte and Luritja. A film for those addicted to speed and dust.

Notes by Romaine Moreton