Filmmakers focus their lens on the Bowraville murders
In 1990-91 three kids disappeared from an Aboriginal Mission on the same street in Bowraville, a tiny country town in northern NSW: 16-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig, 4-year-old Evelyn Greenup, and 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux.
Ronella Jerome reacts to the decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2018 to reject an appeal for a re-trial. Photo: Sydney Morning Herald.
Their remains were all found off the same dirt road.
There has always been one suspect – a local white labourer who was acquitted for two of the murders after a botched, racially-biased police investigation. To this day, the man maintains his innocence while the families desperately want him re-tried. The families’ fight for justice went all the way to the High Court in Canberra. But the case remains unsolved.
Now Sydney filmmakers Adam Kay and Dan Goldberg have co-produced a documentary on the mystery case. In spite of COVID, The Bowraville Murders will be released tomorrow in cinemas in SA, WA, QLD, NT, and TAS.
The documentary is a co-production between Mint Pictures & Jumping Dog Productions
Victorian and NSW will have the opportunity to stream the production.
Muriel Craig, the mother of Colleen Walker Craig (centre), with her daughter Paula Craig (left) and son Lucas Craig (right) Photo: Kate Holmes
Kay and Goldberg run Mint Pictures which has a raft of successes including Strictly Jewish, Code of Silence and Breaking the Silence which exposes sexual abuse on Jewish children in Australia and two documentaries on The Archibald Prize. The Bowraville Murders has been selected as a finalist for the Sydney Film Festival’s Best Documentary category.
Using the investigation into the murders as the spine of the story, Bowraville becomes a microcosm of the wider story of racism inside the criminal justice system and society at large.
Since the children first disappeared, there have been over 470 deaths in custody and not a single conviction. “For us, it’s a killing that never stops,” says journalist and broadcaster Stan Grant in the film. “It’s a legal system that still fails to see us or bring justice.”
The cost is $7 which includes a Q&A,
