FILM WARRIORS

Recent Australian Indigenous Films

Enjoy two programs of contemporary voices from Australia, participate in the filmmaker discussion with Pauline Clague, and catch the last opportunity to see the Culture Warriors contemporary art exhibition before it closes.

AU campus, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C. FREE PARKING

11-7pm CULTURE WARRIORS Exhibition (extended viewing hours)

3:00pm “A WAVE OF CHANGE” (a series of short films)

Bourke Boy Dir: Adrian Wills (11 min)

A father and his adopted troubled teenage son take a trip to the son's birthplace of Bourke, where they try to find the right words to say to each other before it's too late.

Maralinga: The Anangu Story Dir: Pauline Clague (25 min)

50 years ago secret atomic tests were carried out on Australian soil at a place called "Maralinga" in northwestern South Australia. The traditional Aboriginal communities of the region were to be moved for their own safety but somehow they were covered in radioactive fallout. Some of the local Anangu people suffered radiation poisoning and died and many are still enduring the effects of that toxic exposure today. Earlier this year a book of stories and paintings depicting the horrendous results of the testing was published in South Australia. It details those stories, of when the bombs came, first hand.

First Contact Dir: Rima Tamou (8 min)

The lives of two brothers are drastically changed after they discover strange tracks while hunting.

Ralph Dir: Deborah Mailman (10 min)

For ten-year-old Madeline, it takes more than just dreaming to survive; it takes a friend.

When Colin Met Joyce Dir: Rima Tamou (52 min)

Colin and Joyce Clague met in 1964 and have had a mixed-race marriage that has been entwined in a 40-year journey of support, nurturing, devotion, commitment and love. But it is their principles about Aboriginal welfare, social justice, humanity and family that bind them and have helped shape the Australian nation. This is a love story with a true sense of reconciliation bringing about Colin and Joyce's life together.

4:50pm Filmmaker discussion with Pauline Clague

Pauline Clague's documentary credits include: Desperate Times, Ankula Watjirira, The Awakening, Sisters in the Black Movement and When Colin Met Joyce. Over the last twelve months Pauline has directed three documentaries: Meeting Ms Right, Marlinga: the Anangu Story and Ngura the Anangu Story and has produced a short film for the 10th anniversary of imagineNATIVE called First Contact.

5:30pm Film Warriors Networking Reception

7pm “AWARD WINNING DIRECTORS” (a series of short films)

Green Bush Dir: Warwick Thornton (27 min)

DJ Kenny hosts the Green Bush radio show. He takes requests while at the same time providing refuge and comfort to fellow community members from a wild night of incidences and learning his place in the circle of violence. Green Bush is based on Thornton's own real-life experience as a DJ in Alice Springs and celebrates: an era of music; working for the cause; and getting things done.

Warwick has received film awards from Berlin International Film Festival, AFI Film Festival and most recently the Camera d'Or first film prize at the Cannes festival in 2009.

Plains Empty Dir: Beck Cole (28 min)

Plains Empty functions as a metaphor for the whole Australian landscape, where the living characters are beset by the spirits of the past, and at no time is the past truly absent.

Beck Cole’s films have screened at the Sundance and Edinburgh film festivals. Her film Wirriya: Small Boy was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the Inside Film Awards in Sydney and awarded Best Australian Film at the World of Women’s Cinema Film Festival in Sydney.

My Brother Vinnie Dir: Steven McGregor (24 min)

In this intimate and charming documentary, Aaron Pedersen, a successful actor in Australia, tells how he came to take responsibility for the care of his brother Vinnie, who has cerebral palsy and mild intellectual disabilities. Recounting the brothers' past history of trauma, alcoholism and domestic abuse, this touching portrait reveals how challenges are often life's greatest gifts.

McGregor is a writer and director who lived for many years in Alice Springs, Australia. His films included the 50-minute drama Cold Turkey, for which he received an AFI nomination.

Crocodile Dreaming Dir: Darlene Johnson (27 min)

Burrimmilla seeks to find his brother Charlie who still lives the traditional way. Together the two estranged brothers must succeed in retrieving a special stone from the water and bring it back to the creation place, restoring natural order in this modern-day dreamtime legend.

Johnson is from the Dunghutti tribe of the east coast of New South Wales, Australia. Her award-winning dramas and documentaries include Two-Bob Mermaid, Stolen Generations and One Red Blood.