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Directed by Richard J Franklin
Eddie (Luke Carroll) feels that he has become too much like a ‘white fella’ and wants to get back in touch with his Aboriginal identity. The only thing he needs to collect before he heads back to his homeland is a sacred stone given to him by one of the elders many years previously. Unfortunately his permanently stoned cousin Charlie (Leon Birchill) has leant his jacket with the stone in the pocket to someone else and the wayward Charlie ends up joining Eddie on the road trip to Kalgoorlie. Heading out into the outback on their journey of discovery with 187 pre-rolled joints, the two young men come across an assortment of strange characters.
None of the characters live up to the initial impressions you have of them. A hitchhiking rock guitarist (Valentino del Toro), claiming to be an Italian sex god, becomes a permanent occupant of their back seat. Soul-searching prison officer (a very ‘white’ Peter Phelps) heads in completely the wrong direction as he tries to get in touch with his ‘black fella’ roots. Failed drag singer (Bangarra Dance Theatre composer David Page) turns out to be a cousin and a possessed dog could very well be carrying out revenge for Charlie’s jilted girlfriend.
This film is certainly a departure from Richard J Franklin’s previous short films and the documentary Who Killed Malcolm Smith which was about an Aboriginal prisoner who died while in custody. Shot in Western Australia, Stone Bros can genuinely claim to be the first Aboriginal comedy and is an insight into a different kind of humour. As Franklin explains ‘One of the fundamentals of survival when life is knocking you about is laughter. I think we see so much sadness that we begin to see Aboriginal Australia as a problem as opposed to human. Comedy creates a different kind of bridge.’
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