Revised Edition.
Broome is Australia's last frontier, a place of extraordinary contrasts. Hugging the coast of North-West Australia, it is also on the edge of the Kimberley, that vast and beautiful cattle country. Closer to Asia than to Australia's east coast, Broome's main street today is thronged with faces that are part Caucasian, part Aboriginal, part Japanese or Malaysian, or both. Broome's laid back way of life and languorous climate have also attracted Europeans and white Australians from all over the continent, leading to a very special cultural mix.
In 'Broome Time' writers Anne Coombs and Susan Varga spend a year in Broome, talking to its many characters, including Elizabeth Durack's daughter Perpetua, who exhibits the controversial work of her late mother; "Baamba" Albert and Jimmy Chi, respectively star and writer of 'Bran Nue Dae'; Gordon Bauman, the beefy Aboriginal Legal Service lawyer with long bleached hair and his young Aboriginal partner, Damien; Mark Bin Baker, director, manager and presenter of the town's radio station; and many more. Overcoming their own hesitations and prejudices, Coombs and Varga begin to take part in the social and political life of this unique, and uniquely Australian town.
A documentary portrait borrowing the techniques of fiction, 'Broome Time' offers an informative and entertaining glimpse of the possible future of Australia in the twenty-first century.
