Incarceration Nation

A capsule review written for The Big Issue #644 (3 September 2021).

Incarceration Nation (Dean Gibson, 2021)
★★★

“I can’t breathe” reads the shirt worn by grieving mother Leetona Dungay. It’s a powerful slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement, but also the desperate words of her own son, Dunghutti man David Dungay Jr, before he died at Sydney’s Long Bay prison in 2015. Covering a range of overlapping issues including systemic racism, police brutality and the traumas of colonialism, director Dean Gibson (Wik vs Queensland) assembles a roll call of Indigenous activists, experts and leaders – Mick Gooda, Olga Havnen, Keenan Mundine, Vickie Roach, Chelsea Watego – to share their insights about a justice system that has brutalised First Nations people since its outset. The documentary ultimately opts for breadth over depth, cramming a veritable catalogue of horrors into its 90 minutes; it’s a gruelling watch, made more so by the forceful manner in which information is presented (relentless facts and statistics, blood-stained graphics, a doom-laden score). Insofar as the problems it highlights demand our urgent attention – and action – it’s essential viewing all the same.