image of person or book cover 804738586089434529.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
form y separately published work icon Familiar Places single work   film/TV   biography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1980... 1980 Familiar Places
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Narrated by the linguist and anthropologist Peter Sutton, this documentary observes his work with a family in far north Queensland, outside Aurukun, to map their hereditary “clan country”. The aim of the older members of the family is partly to protect their land and prove their attachment to it, for purposes of dealing with the government and industry, and also to demarcate the country from claims by other Aboriginal groups.'

'Angus Namponen, with his elderly uncle, Jack Spear, and their extended family, take Sutton and the filmmakers into the bush around a large salt-water inlet, to show them places that they know and remember from their youth. The location of the sites is then recorded by Sutton and on film as a form of “permanent registration” of the places and their significance. Whether these are sacred or secular sites, they are all part of the “closely-knit fabric” of elements in the landscape and the history of the family’s relationship to them.'

'Angus’s dilemma is that he would prefer to bring his family to live in this, their own country, but has to balance that wish with his recognition that the children need to go to school in town. The process of mapping with Peter Sutton has significance in introducing Angus’s children to the country and to the family’s own history – both a process of recording memories and transmitting knowledge.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

Notes

  • Ronin Films wishes to advise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that this film may contain images and voices of deceased persons.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Language: English
Notes:
English subtitles and English narration
      1980 .
      image of person or book cover 804738586089434529.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 50p.
      Series: AIATSIS Collection Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies , collection

      'The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (later AIATSIS – the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) was established as a statutory authority in 1964. The Institute quickly established a film unit to act as an archive of filmed material and also to record material of ethnographic and historic significance. Part of this work also involved the preparation of films for public release, and until the early 1990s, the AIAS Film Unit became responsible for some of the most significant works of ethnographic film then produced in Australia. This collection of some thirty significant documentary works will be progressively released by Ronin Films in association with AIATSIS, where possible in re-mastered form and with associated interviews with filmmakers.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

Last amended 17 Nov 2015 12:51:50
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