Tom E. Lewis

Acting

Tom E. Lewis

Born 1958-08-25 · Ngukurr, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia

Tom E. Lewis (traditional name: Balang Lewis; 25 August 1958 – 10 May 2018) was an Australian-Aboriginal actor and musician.

Acting credits

The Proposition poster
7.0

In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.

The Proposition

2005

Finding Maawirrangga poster
NR

Tom E Lewis knows he must die with all of his Songs. After years of haunting silence, he returns to his Grandmothers’ country to seek the permission of the Jungayi (Lawmen) to learn Thumbul corroboree (Morning Star). With the family’s blessing through ceremony, the spirits, stars and ancestors help Tom prepare to find the mysterious Sandy Island of Maawirrangga by singing.

Finding Maawirrangga

2017

Goldstone poster
6.0

Indigenous Detective Jay Swan arrives in the frontier town of Goldstone on a missing persons inquiry. What seems like a simple investigation unearths an intricate web of crime, corruption, human trafficking, and coordinated exploitation of indigenous people’s land. Jay must bury his differences with young local cop Josh, so together they can bring justice to Goldstone.

Goldstone

2016

Red Hill poster
6.1

Young police officer Shane Cooper's first day on duty, after relocating to the small town of Red Hill, rapidly turns into a nightmare. News of a prison break, involving convicted murderer Jimmy Conway, sends the local law enforcement officers - led by the town's ruling presence, Old Bill - into a panic and leads to a terrifying and bloody confrontation.

Red Hill

2010

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith poster
6.7

The true story of a part Aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

1978

Kangaroo Palace poster
NR

The story of four young Australians trying their luck in 1960s London.

Kangaroo Palace

1997

Australia: The Wild Top End poster
7.8

Narrated by Indigenous elder Balang T E Lewis, this inspiring documentary will take you on an adventure to explore the culture and wildlife of Australia’s remote wild north. Far Northern Australia is a land of extremes, from bushfires to torrential floods. Explore the wildlife and meet the people in Australia’s wild top end, from the Kimberley coast through the mysterious Arnhem Land, and deep into the world’s oldest rainforest in Cape York.

Australia: The Wild Top End

2019

Crocodile Dreaming poster
NR

Crocodile Dreaming is a modern day supernatural myth about two estranged brothers, played by iconic Indigenous actors David Gulpill and Tom E. Lewis. Separated at birth, they have different fathers. One is readily accepted as a full-fledged member of the tribe and is looked on to fulfill the duties of jungaiy, an important ceremonial role which obliges him to be caretaker for his mother's dreaming, the crocodile totem. The other, whose father was white, is younger and has had to struggle to fit into the tribe who see him only as a yella fella.

Crocodile Dreaming

2006

September poster
5.8

The friendship of two 15-year-old boys – one black, one white – begins to fall apart under the stress of a changing world.

September

2007

Robbery Under Arms poster
6.5

Fourth adaptation and first made for television of the classic Australian bushranger novel "Robbery Under Arms" by Rolf Boldrewood. Made by the South Australian Film Corporation during the mini-series boom of the 1980s and lensed in the Flinders Ranges, it stars Sam Neill as the infamous Captain Starlight.

Robbery Under Arms

1985

The Naked Country poster
4.5

Far North Queensland, 1955. Deep in the untamed frontier tough rancher Lance Dillon and his sensual, but bored wife, battle inhospitable nature to eke out a living from their cattle herd. When the aborigines kill the Dillon's prize bull a chase begins that will culminate in bloody tragedy with Lance pitted against Mandaru - an aborigine struggling to maintain his cultural way of life

The Naked Country

1985

The Skin of Others poster
4.0

Douglas Grant (c. 1885–1951) was an Aboriginal man who became widely known in his own lifetime: an intellectual, a journalist, a soldier in the First World War, a reader of Shakespeare and a bagpipe player who could hold a convincing Scottish accent. His path ran from Australia to Britain and Europe and back, crossing those of Henry Lawson and Archduke Franz Ferdinand along the way. Balang Tom E. Lewis retraces that life in reflections by turns thoughtful and playful, and through it the longer history of colonial Australia and its relationship with First Nations people.

The Skin of Others

2020

We of the Never Never poster
5.9

Based on the well-loved Australian classic by Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, this is the remarkable true story of Jeannie Gunn, a woman who fought to overcome sexual and racial prejudice amid the harsh beauties of the outback. Leaving her Melbourne existence for a new life on her husband's isolated ranch, Jeannie's feisty, good-natured attitude soon wins over the misogynistic stockmen, but she faces a much tougher challenge in trying to change their racist attitudes towards the indigenous aboriginal population.

We of the Never Never

1982

The City's Edge poster
5.5

In an effort to come to terms with his father's death, a young man (Weaving) moves into a rooming house amidst the decaying grandeur of Bondi Beach, where he gets enmeshed in the lives of the other boarders, including a junkie, his sister, and an Aboriginal activist.

The City's Edge

1983

Slate, Wyn & Me poster
5.0

Meandering drama of Brothers Burke and Sacks, who rob a bank, kill a cop and kidnap Thornton, a witness to their crime.

Slate, Wyn & Me

1987

Vacant Possession poster
7.0

Following the death of her mother, a young woman returns after many years to the weather-beaten family home on the shores of Sydney's Botany Bay. But the old family home begins to bring old wounds more and more to life. The story unfolds through flashbacks yet as it progresses the flashbacks merge into the present as it becomes apparent that the situation Tessa has returned to is very much the result of that which passed before.

Vacant Possession

1995

Yellow Fella poster
7.3

In 1978, Tom Lewis appeared in the Australian feature film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. The life of the character he played was hauntingly close to his own, a young, restless man of mixed heritage, struggling for a foothold on the edge of two cultures. Tom's mother is a traditional Indigenous woman of southern Arnhem Land, his father a Welsh stockman who he never really knew. Yellow Fella is a journey across the land and into Tom's past, as he attempts to find the resting place of his father and to finally confront the truth of his most inner feelings of love and identity.

Yellow Fella

2005

Touch the Sun: Top Enders poster
10.0

Two children get stranded in the desert in Australia's Top End.

Touch the Sun: Top Enders

1988

The Life of Harry Dare poster
9.0

Harry Dare is a shambolic Adelaide private investigator. He’s still not certain why he’s in the business; perhaps to understand his father’s disappearance, 20 years earlier? But now Harry’s got a real case: who stole his father’s old Kombi van, nicked (oddly) just after Harry finished restoring it?

The Life of Harry Dare

1995

Behind the camera