The Story
It's May 27, 1967 – Australia's referendum on Aboriginal rights. Two women unite as a family come to terms with the prospect of change.
VOTE YES is a story that follows a family as they prepare to head to the polls. The power plays between black and white, male and female, are confronted as Susan and Elizabeth seek to go vote, in a family where Howard
(father, husband and employer) literally holds the keys to opportunity and change.
About the Film
VOTE YES is a short film by emerging writer/director Nick Waterman.
This ambitious and culturally significant project requires a further $20,000 to help complete the production of what is to be an important and politically powerful short film.
During 2014, VOTE YES will be screened by
RECOGNISE to create awareness and support for the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This will include a special RECOGNISE media event, educational
presentations at universities and schools, and worldwide film festival screenings.
Director’s Statement
VOTES YES shines a torch on a little-remembered moment in Australia’s recent history that forever changed our nation. It is a story about an awakening. The awakening of my own exploration of national identity and, almost
50 years earlier, the awakening of the Australian consciousness.
VOTE YES celebrates the achievement of 1967 without glossing over the racism and sexism, which continued, and continues, to exist within Australian society. Through partnering with RECOGNISE my hope is to reach a wide
and diverse audience of Australians, to help reignite the new movement for constitutional change.
Cast
Miranda Tapsell (The Sapphires)
Mirrah Foulkes (Top of the Lake, Animal Kingdom)
Nathan Page (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries)
