The new film Under Streetlights is largely shot in the tiny community of Amoonguna – 20kms out of Alice Springs. It’s written and directed by the non-Indigenous Danielle Loy, who opened the film in Sydney explaining that, for funding reasons, she couldn’t call this an Indigenous film even though Amoonguna is a 97% Eastern Arrernte and Luritja township of just 57 houses. With a median age of 29, the key fact is that 138 of its 229 people are unemployed, making household income just $814 weekly. And according the last census, there’s no one in town over 70, something emphasised by the discovery that actress Lynette Ellis, playing the town queen delightfully, had died since the filming finished.

But, as one of the film’s stars, Jacob Harvey explained so well at the premier, the film’s really built around Indigenous youth not knowing how to take the next step in life.

This could be really worthy!

So it helps an awful lot that the star-crossed stars of the film are both musicians – she, Ella, played by Madison Hull, is white, the daughter of the town cop, and he, Izak’s Indigenous. Both have troubled parents – drink being the solace for the cop, who’s just lost his wife, and it’s pretty generally a comfort for Izak’s extended family – though his ex-dancer Dad only takes it beyond the pale when he steals Izak’s savings to lose himself in grog.

It’s great that Leighton Mason as Izak’s father is actually a dancer – and it’s an important part of the film that the characters have the authenticity of real life behind their characters. Indeed, the early awkwardness in the dialogue is soon overcome as actors and characters fuse. The odd one out is Luke Scholes as Ella’s broken Dad. Now there’s a name that should be familiar to AAD readers, for this, as far as I know debut actor, is rather better known as one of the finest senior curators and writers about Aboriginal art – notably the man behind Tjungungutja the important unveiling of the earliest boards from Papunya at the Museum & Art Gallery of the NT in 2017. Like Danielle Loy perhaps, his non-Indigenous origins haven’t helped his career!

But his portrayal of a rueful drunk and caring father is pitch-perfect – a match for the young non-lovers, brought together by music rather than lust. Madison Hull is a Francoise Hardy look-alike with a soulful musical take on the loss of her mother. While Jacob Harvey is a classic, laid-back Desert rapper with a serious appreciation of the failings of the world around him. Both actors have musical careers going separately, but, despite any number of fictional set-backs, they make music together. Interestingly, it’s she who takes the initiative to start a possible career.

And with the music by the masterful Cezary Skubiszewski, what could go wrong?

Well, getting the film out of occasional festivals and a one-off premier at the Cremorne Orpheum in Sydney – where it’s not scheduled afterwards – is currently a problem. It’s not huge, but it’s entertaining and true. So catch it if you can at The Ritz in Sydney, Cinema Nova in Melbourne, the Angelika Film Centre, Brisbane, and, appropriately in the Alice Springs Cinema.