Cirrus@Austlit

'Ningla A-Na is one of the most important documentaries on the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Often used as a primary source by historians, little attention has been paid to how the film emerged from a transcultural collaboration between Italian filmmaker Alessandro Cavadini and Indigenous activists. Approaching Ningla A-Na through an analysis of its production and distribution history, this article argues that the film should be understood not only as the record of a crucial time in the history of Indigenous activism, but also as an integral facet of Australia’s migration history and as a tool for transcultural activists’ engagements in the present.' (Publication abstract)

'This book explores the ways in which Australian Indigenous filmmakers, performers and writers work within their Indigenous communities to tell the stories of early Indigenous resistance leaders who fought against British invaders and settlers, thus keeping their legacies alive and connected to community in the present. It offers the first comprehensive and trans-disciplinary analysis of how the stories of Pemulwuy, Jandamarra and Yagan (Bidjigal, Bunuba and Noongar freedom fighters, respectively) have been retold in the past forty years across different media. Combining textual and historical analysis with original interviews with Indigenous cultural producers, it foregrounds the multimodal nature of Indigenous storytelling and the dynamic relationship of these stories to reclamations of sovereignty in the present. It adds a significant new chapter to the study of Indigenous history-making as political action, while modelling a new approach to stories of frontier resistance leaders and providing a greater understanding of how the decolonizing power of Indigenous screen, stage and text production connects past, present and future acts of resistance.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Stories of Indigenous resistance to colonisation were central to the Australian History wars and remain an area of contestation in Australian History. In recent years, documentaries by Indigenous directors have played a significant role in challenging orthodox histories of colonial conflict and Indigenous resistance. This paper reflects on this work by considering the production, form and style of Jandamarra’s War (2011) and Keepers of the Story: Jandamarra (2010), two historical documentaries by Indigenous director Mitch Torres that retell the story of the Bunuba freedom fighter Jandamarra from what she describes as a ‘Bunuba perspective’. It argues that by combining Indigenous storytelling practices with a process of textual hybridisation, Torres enacts a set of new historical practices that allows Bunuba people to reclaim Jandamarra’s story as their own, indeed as a story that comes from and belongs to their country. I therefore propose to consider Torres’ work not only as a new manifestation of the Jandamarra legend but as an historically significant strategic act of keeping the story of Jandamarra ‘alive’ by renegotiating the terms of its telling and reasserting its place in country.' (Publication abstract)