Australia / 1955 / 101 min / DCP / Colour / Adventure

Director : Charles Chauvel

Script : Charles et Elsa Chauvel
Cinematography : Carl Kayser
Editing : Pam Bosworth, Alex Ezard, Jack Gardiner
Music : Isador Goodman
Production : Charles Chauvel
Cast : Ngarla Kunoth, Robert Tudawali, Betty Suttor, Paul Reynall

Cannes Film Festival 1955, Cannes Cinéphiles 2015

Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. After her mother dies giving birth to her, the child is brought to Sarah McMann, the wife of the station boss. Sarah has recently lost her own newborn to illness. She at first intends to give the baby to one of the Aboriginal women who work on the station, but then raises Jedda as her own, teaching her European ways and separating her from other Aborigines. Jedda wants to learn about her own culture, but is forbidden by Sarah. When Jedda grows into a young woman, she becomes curious about an Aboriginal man from the bush named Marbuck...

Charles Chauvel

Charles Chauvel was born in Queensland, Australia in 1897. He went to Sydney to study drama and then to America. He returned to Australia and in 1926 made his first feature film, "The Moth of Moonbi". His other films include "In the Wake of the Bounty" (1933), a film which launched the career of Errol Flynn, "40 000 Horsemen" (1940) an account of the Australian Light Horse, "The Rats of Tobruk" (1944) a drama set in north-east Libya where the Australian soldiers were fighting Rommel's forces, "Sons of Matthew" (1950) a story based upon the lives of the O'Reilly family who had been pioneers in Australia, "Jedda" (1955) the first colour feature film made in Australia. Over the next few years, Charles and Elsa travelled around Australia, making a series of documentaries for the BBC, before Charles died suddenly of a heart attack in 1959.