In 1971 Wandjuk Marika organised a Djang'kawu ceremony at Yirrkala. It was to be a memorial for his father, Mawalan, who died in 1967. Mawalan had been the highly respected head of the Rirratjingu clan, for whom the Djang'kawu are primary Creator Ancestors. The two Djang'kawu Sisters came from across the sea and travelled through northeast Arnhem Land, shaping the landscape and giving birth to the first children of the Dhuwa moiety. The Djang'kawu...

This book tells the story of two orphan sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, as they leave Australia to start a new life in post-war England. What happens to these young women--seduction and abandonment, marriage and widowhood, love and betrayal--becomes as moving and wonderful and yet as predestined as the transits of the planets themselves. Gorgeously written and intricately constructed, Hazzard's novel is a story of place: Sydney, London, New York,...

HOMELAND STORY is an intimate portrait of Donydji, a small Indigenous community in North East Arnhem Land in the far north of Australia. Homelands are situated on the land of the people who live there. They are of central importance to their identity and culture. The film charts the Donydji community's transition from nomadic life to the digital age, from the 1960s to the present day. One family is featured, across three generations, from the traditional...

Growing concern among young Aboriginal community leaders, particularly those in the Borroloola Men's Group, drew them to the idea of re-enacting a walk that hadn't occurred for almost thirty years. The Buwarrala-Journey is a traditional walk for the Garrwa, Yanyuwa, Mara and Gurdanji peoples of the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia. Practiced for generations as part of the initiation of young boys, the walk was re-enacted in 1988 and documented...

From the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy to the creation of the Black Panther Party of Australia Sam Watson has been one of the leading voices in the struggle for justice for black Australians. In this posthumous and exclusive record Sam looks back on the street fighting years under the iron grip of the right wing Government of Jo Bjelke-Petersen in Queensland. He and colleagues like Dennis Walker were watched 24/7 by the Queensland Police...

In 1965 and 1967, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies sponsored film trips by the then Commonwealth Film Unit to the Western Desert region of Australia. The object of these trips was to film the daily life of nomadic Aboriginal people living in the Gibson Desert of Central Australia. Although this land is one of the most arid regions of Australia, the people who lived there regarded it as rich in resources. This longform film series is...

A compelling account of the return by a group of dispossessed Aboriginal people to their ancient tribal grounds in the Northern outreaches of this continent. This highly provocative cinema verité work shows the rebuilding of relationships through a shared pilgrimage to ancestral lands and a traditional Aboriginal ceremony, despite occasional failures of cross-cultural communication. It reflects a community in transition through the journey of a...

Despite his success as filmmaker and musician, Grant Leigh Saunders feels there is something missing in his life. As a fair-skinned Aboriginal man, with a Norwegian wife and two young "Koori-Wegian" kids, Grant is struggling with his identity. He latches onto an opportunity to quit everything to go fishing with his father. He convinces his father to pass on the family trade in his home country on the beautiful Manning River of Taree in central New...

The film is a galvanising portrayal of large-scale environmental achievements being made by community groups, Aboriginal communities and rangers, conservation landholders, farmers and scientists. Together, they are restoring and healing land around the Porongurup and Stirling Ranges in south-western Australia. In this region some of Australia's most biologically diverse ecosystems were destroyed when land clearing for broad-acre agriculture was dramatically...

This documentary follows a group of Indigenous people from the Pilbara as they battle to preserve Australia's unique cultural heritage from the ravages of a booming mining industry. In the heart of Western Australia, the Burrup Peninsula hosts the largest concentration of rock art in the world; a dramatic, ancient landscape so sacred that some parts shouldn't be looked upon at all except by Traditional Owners. Waves of industrialisation and development...