The Dark Side of Christmas: Incarceration and Alienation in Gabrielle Brady’s film Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018)

Christmas Island is located 350 kilometres south of Jakarta and 1,400 kilometres north-west of the mid-north coast of the state of Western Australia (Figure 1) and has a land area of 165 square kilometres. The island’s history of human inhabitation is comparatively shallow, commencing in 1899, shortly after it was claimed by the United Kingdom, the merchantadventurer George Clunies-Ross began to exploit its considerable phosphate deposits by importing indentured labourers from Malaya, Singapore and China (see Hunt, 2011). Initially administered by the Clunies-Ross family and British colonial authorities in Singapore, the island was transferred to Australian control in 1958 and since 1997 together with the Cocos [Keeling] Islands has formed part of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories. The cultural and linguistic diversity of the island’s population is highly distinct within Australia on account of the prominence of individuals with non-European ancestry within its community. Of its population of 1843 (2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures), 61.5% were born outside of Australia. 21.1% identify as being of Chinese ancestry, 12% Malay and 25.9% claim Australian, English or Irish ancestry. These census figures merit comment in that for all they may represent the population of Christmas Island at the date of census, a hidden aspect of ABS statistics is the proportion of those surveyed who were temporary residents at time of census. With regard to the continuing and/or multi-generational population of the island, those of Chinese and Malay ancestry are the most prominent, with traces of their 120-year involvement with the island being present in its material and folkloric history.