In 1931, three Aboriginal girls—Molly (14), her sister Daisy (8), and their cousin Gracie (10)—are taken from their mothers by government officials enforcing Australia’s policy of removing “half-caste” children from their families. The girls are transported 1,200 miles to Moore River Native Settlement, a camp designed to train them as domestic servants and breed out their Aboriginal heritage through forced assimilation. Molly refuses to accept this fate. She leads her sister and cousin in an escape, and the three children walk home—1,500 miles through the Australian outback, following the rabbit-proof fence that stretches across the continent, evading the Aboriginal tracker sent to recapture them. The film is based on the true story of Molly Craig, whose daughter Doris Pilkington wrote the book that became this film. The real Molly lived until 2004; she appears in the film’s final moments, an elderly woman standing in the desert where her journey began.

Content Breakdown: The PG rating is accurate—this is a film about serious historical atrocity presented with restraint appropriate for family viewing. Language contains no profanity. Violence is structural rather than graphic: children are forcibly removed from screaming mothers (deeply disturbing emotionally though not physically violent); the settlement enforces discipline through confinement and threat; the tracker pursues the girls relentlessly; hunger, exposure, and exhaustion threaten them throughout. One scene shows a girl being dragged away after recapture. No sexual content, though the film’s background explains that “half-caste” girls were sometimes paired with white men to “breed out” Aboriginal heritage—this eugenics policy is referenced but not depicted. No substance use. The most challenging elements are the systematic cruelty depicted—not individual villainy but government policy designed to destroy Aboriginal families and culture—and the emotional weight of children separated from mothers who cannot protect them. The scenes of removal are devastating without being graphic.

Why This Film Works for Accepting Others

Rabbit-Proof Fence approaches acceptance from a devastating angle: what happens when a society refuses to accept an entire people, when government policy is built on the premise that Aboriginal Australians are problems to be solved rather than people to be respected. The “Stolen Generations”—the Aboriginal children removed from families between 1910 and 1970—represent systematic rejection elevated to national policy.

A.O. Neville, the real “Chief Protector of Aborigines” depicted in the film, believed he was helping Aboriginal people by eliminating them—not through violence but through assimilation, through breeding programs designed to dilute Aboriginal blood until it disappeared, through removing children young enough to forget their families and culture. He saw himself as benevolent. This is perhaps the film’s most disturbing element: the rejection of Aboriginal humanity was enacted by people who believed they were doing good.

Against this machinery of rejection, three children walk home. Their journey is an act of radical self-acceptance—refusing to become what the government wants them to be, refusing to accept that their families and culture are inferior, refusing to be erased. Molly doesn’t argue with Neville’s ideology; she simply rejects its authority over her life by walking 1,500 miles through desert and bushland to return to people who want her as she is.

The film teaches acceptance by showing its opposite in full operation. Viewers see what non-acceptance looks like when it becomes policy: families destroyed, cultures targeted for extinction, children taught to be ashamed of who they are. This makes abstract concepts viscerally real. And in Molly’s determination to return home—to people and a place that accept her completely—viewers see what acceptance actually means: being wanted for who you are, not for who someone wants to make you.

Characters to Discuss

• Molly Craig: Fourteen years old, she makes the decision to escape and leads two younger children across 1,500 miles of wilderness. What qualities enable her to attempt this? Where does her determination come from? What does she risk by escaping—and what does she refuse to risk by staying?
• Daisy and Gracie: The younger girls who follow Molly’s lead. Gracie eventually believes a lie told by the tracker and leaves the group, leading to her recapture. Daisy stays with Molly to the end. What does Gracie’s choice teach about the difficulty of maintaining resistance? What does Daisy’s perseverance teach about trust?
• A.O. Neville: The Chief Protector who orders the girls’ capture and orchestrates their pursuit. He’s not depicted as a monster—he’s calm, bureaucratic, convinced of his own righteousness. What’s more disturbing: a villain who knows he’s evil, or one who believes he’s helping? How does the film portray him?
• Moodoo (the tracker): An Aboriginal man employed to track the escaped children. He’s caught between worlds—working for the system that oppresses his people, yet also (it’s suggested) deliberately allowing the girls to escape at certain moments. What does his character represent about the impossible positions colonialism creates?
• The mothers: We see Molly’s mother’s anguish when the children are taken—a scene of raw grief that anchors the entire film. The mothers are powerless against official policy, their love legally irrelevant. What does the film say about what parents owe children, and what happens when the state overrides parental love?
• The settlement staff: Some are cruel, others kind within a cruel system. What does the film suggest about individuals operating within unjust institutions?

Parent Tips for This Film

The removal scene requires preparation: Approximately fifteen minutes into the film, government officials arrive to take the children. The mothers’ screams, their desperate attempts to hold on, and the children’s confusion and terror are emotionally devastating. This scene may be the most difficult content in the curriculum for families to watch together. Prepare viewers: “There’s a scene where the children are taken from their mothers. It’s very hard to watch—the mothers are screaming, the children don’t understand what’s happening. The scene shows why this policy was so cruel. We can pause if you need to.”

The historical context is essential: Before viewing, explain the Stolen Generations: “The Australian government had a policy of taking Aboriginal children—especially those with one white parent—away from their families. They believed Aboriginal culture was inferior and that these children should be raised to be ‘white.’ Between 1910 and 1970, tens of thousands of children were taken. This was legal and official government policy. The film shows what this looked like for three real girls.”

The “breeding out” policy: The film references but doesn’t explicitly depict the eugenics program that motivated removals—pairing “half-caste” girls with white men to produce lighter-skinned children over generations until Aboriginal heritage was eliminated. For older children, this context deepens understanding: “Neville believed that by controlling who these children married, he could eventually eliminate Aboriginal people entirely—not through killing but through breeding them out of existence. This was considered scientific and progressive at the time.”

The tracker’s ambiguity: Moodoo works for the system that oppresses his people—a difficult position the film doesn’t resolve simply. Discuss: “Moodoo is Aboriginal but works for Neville tracking escaped children. What choices does he have? Some people think he deliberately lets the girls go at times. What do you think? What would you do in his position?”

Gracie’s fate: Gracie believes a lie and leaves the group, leading to her recapture. She was never reunited with her family. This is historically accurate and devastating. Prepare viewers: “Not all three girls make it home. One of them, Gracie, makes a choice that leads to her being caught. Her story doesn’t have a happy ending. The film shows that this journey was dangerous and not everyone survived it.”

The real Molly appears: The film ends with footage of the elderly Molly and Daisy in the present day, standing in the landscape they crossed as children. This documentary coda—seeing the real people—often moves viewers deeply. It confirms: this really happened, to real people, who are still alive (Molly died in 2004, Daisy in 2009).

Historical Context: The Stolen Generations

The policy: From 1910 to 1970, Australian federal and state governments removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. The policy particularly targeted “half-caste” children (those with one white parent), who were considered more assimilable. Estimates suggest between 10% and 33% of Aboriginal children were removed during this period.

The rationale: Officials like A.O. Neville believed Aboriginal people were a “dying race” who should be helped to disappear through assimilation. Children removed young enough, they believed, would forget their families, culture, and language. The policy was simultaneously genocidal (aimed at eliminating a people) and paternalistic (enacted by people who believed they were helping).

The settlements: Children were placed in government institutions, church missions, or foster families. They were forbidden to speak their languages, practice their cultures, or contact their families. Many suffered abuse; some never learned who their biological families were.

The apology: In 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized to the Stolen Generations—the first official government acknowledgment of the policy’s cruelty. The apology was controversial; debates continue about compensation, family reunification, and ongoing effects.

Ongoing effects: The trauma of the Stolen Generations continues to affect Aboriginal communities today—through intergenerational trauma, lost cultural knowledge, family disconnections, and ongoing inequality. The policy was not ancient history; many Stolen Generations survivors are still alive.

Themes for Deeper Discussion

Genocide without killing:

The Stolen Generations represent what scholars call “cultural genocide”—the destruction of a people not through murder but through the elimination of their culture, language, and family structures.

Discussion questions:

• Is it possible to commit genocide without killing anyone?
• What was being destroyed by the removal policy?
• How does cultural genocide differ from—and resemble—physical genocide?
• Why might some people resist calling this genocide?

“Helping” that harms:

Neville and others believed they were helping Aboriginal people by assimilating them into white society. They saw Aboriginal culture as primitive and their policy as progressive.

Discussion questions:

• How can people cause great harm while believing they’re doing good?
• What made it possible for officials to see family destruction as benevolence?
• Where today might we be “helping” in ways that actually harm?
• How do we recognize when our help isn’t wanted or isn’t helpful?

Acceptance versus assimilation:

The settlement’s goal was assimilation—making Aboriginal children indistinguishable from white Australians. Molly’s journey home represents rejection of assimilation in favor of acceptance—being wanted as who she actually is.

Discussion questions:

• What’s the difference between accepting someone and assimilating them?
• Is there ever a good reason to pressure someone to change their culture or identity?
• What did Molly have to give up if she stayed at the settlement? What did she preserve by going home?
• Where do we see pressure toward assimilation today?

The fence as symbol:

The rabbit-proof fence was built to protect farms from rabbits—a colonial infrastructure project. For Molly, it becomes a guide home, a way to navigate the colonizers’ landscape back to her family.

Discussion questions:

• What does the fence represent?
• How does Molly use the colonizers’ infrastructure for her own purposes?
• What does this say about resistance and survival within oppressive systems?

Visual Literacy

Director Phillip Noyce creates visual poetry from the Australian landscape:

The landscape as character: The outback is vast, harsh, and beautiful. Noyce films it with respect for its dangers and its grandeur. The children are tiny figures against enormous spaces—emphasizing both their vulnerability and the scale of their achievement.

Color and texture: The red earth, the scrubland, the endless sky—these become visual motifs. The settlement is gray, institutional, colorless. Home is warm, textured, alive. How does color communicate meaning?

The fence: A thin line of wire stretching to the horizon. It’s both fragile-looking and endless—a guide that offers direction without protection. How does the film frame this central image?

The final documentary footage: The shift from dramatization to documentary—seeing the real Molly and Daisy as elderly women—creates a powerful jolt. Fiction becomes history. How does this shift affect your experience of the story?

Peter Gabriel’s score: The music blends Western orchestration with Aboriginal instruments and vocalizations. Listen for how the score creates emotional atmosphere without overwhelming the images.

Studying the Book and Film Together

Doris Pilkington’s Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence (1996) tells her mother Molly’s story, recovered through research and family oral history.

What the book offers:

• Multiple journeys: Molly escaped twice—the book covers both escapes, while the film depicts only the first.
• More historical context: The policy, the settlements, and the Aboriginal experience are explored more fully.
• Doris’s own story: The author, Molly’s daughter, was herself part of the Stolen Generations—removed from her mother as a child. Her perspective adds another generation to the narrative.
• The rabbit-proof fence’s history: More detail on this enormous infrastructure project and its role in Aboriginal displacement.

What the film offers:

• Visual immersion: The landscape, the settlement, the journey—seeing these creates immediate understanding that prose must build.
• The removal scene: Cinema can convey the horror of family separation with visceral power.
• The real women: Seeing Molly and Daisy at the film’s end transforms story into history.

Discussion comparison:

• How does knowing Doris Pilkington (the author) was also taken from Molly affect your understanding of the story?
• What aspects of the journey can the book convey that the film cannot, and vice versa?

Related Viewing

Films about indigenous resistance and survival:

• Whale Rider (2002, PG-13) — Maori girl claims her heritage; ages 10+. Also in this curriculum.
• Smoke Signals (1998, PG-13) — Contemporary Native American identity; ages 13+
• Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001, R—violence, nudity) — Inuit legend; ages 16+

Films about children surviving oppression:

• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008, PG-13) — Holocaust through a child’s eyes; ages 12+
• Empire of the Sun (1987, PG) — Child surviving WWII; ages 10+
• Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Not Rated) — Children surviving war; ages 13+. Also in this curriculum.

Films about the Stolen Generations:

• Australia (2008, PG-13) — Epic including Stolen Generations subplot; ages 12+
• Samson and Delilah (2009, Not Rated) — Contemporary Aboriginal youth; ages 16+

Documentaries:

• First Australians (2008, TV series) — History of Aboriginal Australia; ages 12+
• Utopia (2013, Not Rated) — John Pilger on Aboriginal conditions; ages 14+

Recommendation: Suitable for ages 10+ as suggested, with preparation for the emotionally devastating removal scene and the weight of historical genocide. The PG rating is accurate—content is serious rather than graphic. For families discussing acceptance, prejudice, indigenous rights, or what happens when governments decide certain people don’t deserve to exist as they are, Rabbit-Proof Fence is essential viewing. It shows acceptance through its absence—a world where Aboriginal families were not accepted, where children were taken to be transformed into something their captors found more acceptable. And against this machinery of rejection, three girls walked home, choosing the people who wanted them as they were over the institution that wanted them erased. That walk—1,500 miles through desert and bushland, following a fence across a stolen continent—is what acceptance means: going wherever necessary to be with people who love you for who you actually are.