AustLit

In Perth, Western Australia, the Coolbaroo Club operated for 14 years (1946-1960) as a meeting place and a community focus for the local Aboriginal community. The Club was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practised unofficial apartheid. Continually harrassed by police with enforced fraternisation bans and curfews placed on them, the Indigenous population was also required to carry identity cards and deal with bureaucratic obstruction. During its lifetime, the Club attracted black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas, among them Nat 'King' Cole, Harold Blair, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

In the Tasmanian highlands, Ruby Rose lives with her husband Henry (a trapper) and their adopted son, Gem. Superstitious and anxious, Ruby paints the walls of her house white to keep away the darkness, but still wakes in terror each night. To learn the secret that keeps her terrified and trapped, she must venture down to the valley, to her father's house and her grandmother.