AustLit

'In Dispossession and the Making of Jedda, Catherine Kevin offers a quietly compelling account of a paradox that defined settler colonialism in mid-20th century Australia: its fascination with Aboriginality at a distance—on screen and in the scenic centre and north of Australia—alongside its inability to see (let alone comprehend) the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal people close to home. What prompted Kevin to explore this paradox was the casual revelation of a family connection to Charles and Elsa Chauvel, Sydney-based filmmakers who, in 1950, set up a production company with wealthy woolgrowers of the Yass Valley in southern New South Wales. The company would finance and shoot a Technicolor film in the Northern Territory, featuring “magnificent scenery and magnificent aborigine types” (59).' (Introduction)