“Landmark Australian film” (Peter Thompson)
AFF is proud to present the restored version of Black and White. It has never been more relevant, given the current Black Lives Matter movement. It dramatizes the true story of Max Stuart, an Aranda man arrested for the rape and murder of a young girl in 1958. The fight for a fair trial for Stuart became a cause célèbre of politics, power and the media that thrust Rupert Murdoch to early prominence and reverberated throughout South Australia and the nation, a battle that brought lasting changes to our legal system. This 2002 film is the pinnacle of the long collaboration between producer Helen Leake and director Craig Lahiff, and brings together a great cast including Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance, Kerry Fox and David Ngoombujarra, who carried off an AFI Award for his portrayal of Stuart.
“interestingly ambiguous where another sort of film might have been content with PC certainty… a dark horse of a film” (The Guardian)
“one helluva great yarn for starters” (Urban Cinefile)
“a thoroughly absorbing treat”” (Daily Mirror)
Craig Lahiff
Craig Lahiff was born in Adelaide in 1947. He studied science at Adelaide University, and then film at Flinders. After a number of short films, he directed Coda (1987), Fever (1989), Strangers (1991), Ebbtide (1994), Heaven’s Burning (1947), Black and White (2002) and Swerve (2011). He died in 2014. Most of his features were produced with Helen Leake for Duo Art Productions, the company they founded in 1994.
