The potential for full-blown violence towards the kidnap victim is interrupted by the humanity of one of the captors and co-conspirators. The compassion shown towards Melanie (Alyssa McClelland) in this scene may be the first time the character has experienced such a gesture. The two characters Melanie and Perry (Jie Pittman) draw out qualities in each other that are usually suppressed in their everyday environment.

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Synopsis

A short film based on a story by Archie Weller, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning is the story of a robbery gone wrong, an unplanned kidnapping and its consequences. A young white girl is kidnapped by three youths – two black, one white.

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Curator's notes

Saturday Night, Sunday Morning almost qualifies as a case of Stockholm Syndrome, with the relationship between the kidnap victim and the kidnapper Perry (Jie Pittman) depicted as a romantic one. Melanie (Alyssa McClelland), the daughter of a single parent, seems adrift, when she is suddenly caught up in the drama of a kidnapping. The character Perry prevents Willy (Sam O’Dell) from raping her, and for this she is thankful. The empathy shared by Perry and Melanie is framed as a possible romance that disrupts the relationship between the two cousins, Perry and Elvis (Luke Carroll). The film offers few answers or a resolution as to what the experience means to Melanie, and in the end what is presented is perhaps a possibility of characters trapped in an experience from which all are seeking some form of liberation.

Other films in the AFC Indigenous Branch drama initiative Crossing Tracks (1999) are Harry’s War and Wind.

Notes by Romaine Moreton