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Directed by Wayne Blair, 2012.
The Sapphires is an Australian musical comedy-drama film based on the 2004 stage play of the same name. The film centres around four indigenous women, Gail (Deborah Mailman), Julie (Jessica Mauboy), Kay (Shari Sebbens) and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), who are discovered by a talent scout (Chris O’Dowd), and form a music group named The Sapphires, travelling to Vietnam in 1968 to sing for troops during the war.
The musical-comedy-drama, grossed $14,475,640 at the Australian box office making it the 17th highest earning Australian film at the local box office, of all time. (Screen Australia, 2015)
The film won 16 AACTA awards including Best Film, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay. (AACTA, 2012)
The film was screened at Cannes Film festival in 2012 and was reported to have received a standing ovation. (The Daily Telegraph, 2012)
According to academic Bruno Starrs, despite being a feel-good musical-comedy, the film doesn’t shy away from having a political agenda that promotes racial equality.
“Like that other Aboriginal Australian musical of recent times, the relatively low budget Bran Nue Dae (Rachel Perkins 2009), Blair’s project is primarily one of joyously affirming Aboriginal Australian singers. With its rom-com depiction of the inter-racial amour between Dave Lovelace and Gail McCrae, the film sparkles like the gemstone it is named after, shining and lighting the way to a better Australia and herein lies its cultural significance in a climate of pro-reconciliation: its political subtext of promoting Aboriginal Australian sovereignty is overt but sweetly packaged.” (Starrs, 2012)
“Even politically motivated cinema needs to succeed at the box office and Wayne Blair, having tasted extraordinary mainstream success with his debut feature film in 2012, is now well-positioned to pursue similarly well-funded filmic projects and entertain any Aboriginal Australian political agenda”. (Starrs, 2012)
Controversy surrounded the film when American distributor, Anchor Bay Entertainment was forced to apologize after releasing a DVD cover that was deemed racist and sexist. The DVD cover displayed the four leading indigenous women in muted colours and positioned them as smaller figures behind the white, male lead character of the film, played by Irish actor Chris O’Dowd, who had a much smaller role in the film. The DVD cover was viewed by many as a sexist and racist misrepresentation of the film. (Rao, 2012)
“Naomi Mayers, one of the four former bandmates, told the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘It’s disrespectful to the very talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it’s disrespectful to us as a group. But in particular, it’s disrespectful to women of color everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their lives.'” (Rao, 2012)