Bush Bikes
Australia, 2002
Director: David S Vadiveelo
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 6 minutes
Short synopsis
Bored of sharing their bikes, four Aboriginal children make two bikes by using natural materials and some spare parts found at a rubbish tip.
Long synopsis
In a sleepy aboriginal settlement in central Australia three boys ride around together, on one bike. They cycle through the dusty landscape, across a bridge along the road to town. Once there, they gaze longingly through the window of a bike shop.
Another friend with a bike arrives and they all cycle off together, two people on each bike, back toward home. On the way they stop off at a rubbish tip and rummage around for bike parts, collecting tubes, spare wheels and seats. They ride off and stop in a clearing where, using the collected materials along with natural resources, improvised tools and plenty of ingenuity, they construct two bikes.
There is no dialogue in Bush Bikes but most of the action is accompanied by music with an upbeat energising rhythm. This music stops before the film does and silence accompanies the final scene of the boys standing at the top of a hill at sunset, bikes at their side, looking out at the landscape below.
Background information
About the film and the film-maker
Trained as a lawyer, David Vadiveloo now works as a documentary film-maker, an educator and an advocate for indigenous Australians. He was involved in a successful Native Title claim incorporating Alice Springs. It was while working at a camp in Alice Springs - for children who live on the fringes of town - that Vadiveloo first realised potential of film as a communication tool. He encouraged the children to make films of their experiences and found the results so powerful that he enrolled in film school. Since graduating from the Victorian College of Arts Vadiveloo has maintained his interest in the communities with which he worked and has focussed his filmmaking projects on the lives of the indigenous people of Australia. Bush Bikes, which is about children from the camp, is a continuation of this interest.
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your students. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your students' needs.
The additional materials, provided by the film-makers, can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen students' understanding of the process of film-making.
