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Our Warrior: The Story of Robbie Thorpe

A story of resistance across generations, the power of family and the unrelenting struggle for justice in a country that remains in denial.

Aboriginal political activist Robbie Thorpe stands as part of a long line of Indigenous resistance to invasion.

This 53 minute documentary shows the making of this modern leader and tracks the resurgence of a powerful Black, Indigenous, anti-colonial movement that is currently reshaping the country.

Our Warrior looks back at Robbie’s childhood, his family and explores the emergence of his radical politics in the formative years of Black Power in Australia, his apprenticeship in the 1970's under Dr Bruce McGuiness, and his emergence as one of the most controversial and uncompromising activists in Australia today.

This film examines his political impact as an activist, how he sustains himself against such great odds and whom he has influenced. In doing so the film uncovers the story of how resistance and resilience is transmitted across generations and the power of family.

Robbie has organised challenges to ongoing genocide, colonization and assimilation for more than 35 years, always working toward indigenous economic and political independence. This documentary is the first to give us a sense of who he is the forces that shaped him.

Robbie's high court legal actions on Genocide were broader than the Mabo case and shifted the national conversation and ultimately our laws. His series of high profile, controversial political and cultural interventions have shaken many, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, out of complacency.

He remains a fierce and unrelenting advocate today.

He is outspoken and always provocative, providing high-profile voice and leadership yet also acting as a mentor and quiet support to indigenous and non-indigenous people alike. He stands unapologetically on the most controversial and radical edge of Indigenous politics.

  • Anthony Kelly
    Director
  • Anthony Kelly
    Producer
  • Robbie Thorpe
    Key Cast
  • Gary Foley
    Key Cast
  • Lidia Thorpe
    Key Cast
  • Meriki Onus
    Key Cast
  • Tony Birch
    Key Cast
  • Neil Morris
    Music & Soundtrack
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    53 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    70,000 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital cinema cam ProRes422HQ
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Impact DOCS Award 2025

    Award of Merit
  • BIRRARANGGA Film Festival
    Melbourne
    Australia
    March 17, 2025
    World, Australian
    Official Selection
Director Biography - Anthony Kelly

Anthony Kelly started shooting Super 8 as a teenager, trained at Open Channel in Fitzroy in the early 1990's and shot punk gigs, protests and post-apocalyptic shorts until activism and campaign work took over. He had to put the camera down for the next 20 years after realizing that you cant play key organising roles and shoot documentaries at the same time.

Nowadays Anthony brings over three decades of peace, environmental and social justice activism to documentary film making. Anthony has shot, edited and directed a series of short-form and mid-length projects over the past 10 years. Our Warrior is his first mid-length documentary as Director.

Based in Melbourne, Australia Anthony forefronts important, under-heard and deeply personal narratives of resistance, change and resilience in the face of extraordinary odds.

Filmography

War On Trial (2016) 52'. Directed by David Bradbury, Frontline Films, Official Selection Global Peace Film Festival 2016. - Editor

Waging Peace (2015) 49'. Directed by David Bradbury, Frontline Films - Editor

Hidden Valley (2013). 23' - Directed by Jessie Boylan. Produced by the Mineral Policy Institute. Premiered as opening film at the Environmental Film Festival Melbourne, Australia. (September 2013) - Editor

Maralinga Pieces (2012) - Directed by Jessie Boylan. World Premiere screening at the 2nd International Uranium Film Festival, Rio, Brazil 2012, Official Selection for the SoCal Fim Festival, California,2012, Touring Uranium Film Festival Berlin, 2012
Official Selection for the Byron Bay Film Festival (BBFF), Australia, 2013

Other films see:
www.anthonykelly-doco.com

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I am a Melbourne based independent documentary filmmaker and editor but it is through decades of peace, environment and social justice activism that I got to know Robbie Thorpe.

I first met Robbie around 1989 when he would attend activist meetings around Melbourne arguing for us to join the Pay the Rent campaign – in which non-indigenous people would contribute a small percentage of their income to Indigenous controlled organisations or campaigns, which would then provide an independent economic base for Aboriginal resistance. Pay the Rent exemplified Robbie’s strategic vision - as a tactic it was brilliantly constructive. It emphasized independence, practical solidarity, and drove home Robbie’s key messages that Indigenous Sovereignty was never ceded, nor was a there any form of treaty and that all non-indigenous people in Australia are living on the proceeds of an horrific, illegal and premeditated act of genocide.

In 1991, Robbie ceremoniously marched to the statue of Melbourne’s revered ‘Founding Father’ John Batman in Collins Street and, before a crowd of several hundred people, proceeded to put him on trial for crimes against humanity, genocide and murder. The statues hands were made red – his crimes were listed and hung around the statue’s neck.

I witnessed this form of expertly conceived, theatrical, deeply symbolic protest action from Robbie over the next two decades.

Robbie’s actions have attracted criticism from Prime Ministers, Premiers, Andrew Bolt, and even other Aboriginal activists, including Elders.

To me, Robbie has been a primary educator. I’ve listened to and learnt from Robbie throughout my work as a social justice and human rights campaigner. I know Australia is a crime scene and I know why. Robbie draws the threads of two centuries of oppression together by relentlessly focusing our attention on the core injustices. I believe that Robbie’s messages are critical to modern Australia. I want to explore why and examine his political impact as an activist.

I have been interested for many years in how Robbie sustains himself against such great odds. What drives him to continue to resist colonialism in a country that was occupied 227 years ago? His public rhetoric is powerful and relentless but I want this film to provide a sense of who he is and the forces that shaped him.

As a filmmaker I have an opportunity to forefront important and under-heard narratives. The issues of sovereignty and treaty raised by Robbie are vital to me not only as a social justice activist but also as a citizen of this colonial-settler nation state which we call Australia. Through this film I continued to interrogate my place as a non-indigenous Australian, a process that began in late high-school, and also taking a place amongst a long line of non-indigenous filmmakers depicting, documenting and collaborating with Indigenous artists activists and communities.[i]

From patronizing and racist ethnographic films to more recent powerful collaborations, non-indigenous filmmakers seem to be getting better at respecting and working with Indigenous subjects and subject matter. As a non-Indigenous filmmaker respect, consent and appropriate cultural pathways[ii] are vital. I’m committed to extensive and continuing consultation and empathizing solidarity. Good observational documentaries are based upon listening and a high level of trust and respect between maker and subject, which tend to be basis for solidarity work in any context.

I have drawn much from Clare Land’s 2015 book Decolonising Solidarity [iii] which reckoned with much of the tensions, dilemmas and complicity of my own activist and movement based experience and emphasised critical self-reflection, acknowledging intersectionality and the need to act politically.

I hope this documentary comes close to meeting Lester-Irabinnna Rigney’s definition of ‘Indigenist research’ : that it is guided by resistance as an emancipatory imperative, that it has political integrity, and that it privileges Indigenous voices. These principals have informed my research, production and editing throughout.

David McDougall (Whose Story is It?, 1998), says that “If a film is a reflection of an encounter between filmmaker and subject, it must be seen to some degree as produced by the subject.” In this work I have emphasized the voice of each subject as primary – and eschewed narration or interpretation – whilst remaining cognizant of each an every editing choice throughout. McDougall also notes that films arising from a dialogues between a filmmaker and subjects of a fundamentally different culture can end up being read by each party as expressing different things. I would expect this documentary to be read very differently by Indigenous and non-Indigenous audiences.

Despite these resources and influences, fuck-ups in this film and during its eight years of production are very much my own.

Through this film I have looked for ways to interpret, communicate, depict the struggle that Robbie articulates to audiences beyond those already engaged. I will be looking to ways to maximize its social and political impact.

I want to thank Robbie for sticking with this project and his patience as year after year went by. I also wish to thank the entire Thorpe family for their support, trust and extraordinary generosity of spirit.

Anthony Kelly, January 2019