Cirrus@Austlit

'The story of an Aboriginal stockman and his family and their growing passion for “picnic racing” on bush tracks in New South Wales.'

'Sunny and The Dark Horse was filmed at Collum Collum, an Aboriginal-operated cattle station in north-eastern New South Wales. The film follows the Aboriginal manager of the station, Sunny Bancroft, and his non-Aboriginal wife, Liz, in their search for a winning horse to triumph on the local picnic racing circuit – but things don’t always go their way.'

'The story begins when Sunny buys a horse for his daughter to ride and races it at the Glenreagh Gallop. He then attempts to find a suitable stockhorse on the station to race at the local Baryulgil picnic races. But while training one of these he hears that a friend has a racehorse for sale and buys it to race at Baryulgil. The horse, King, wins at Baryulgil but loses at subsequent race meetings. Sunny determines to find another winner and buys a black horse, naming it Sambo.'

'With the end of the season, Sunny is persuaded by his family not to buy any more horses, but then he hears that a friend has another racehorse for sale ...'(Ronin Films website)

'Link-Up Diary explores the consequences of the New South Wales government’s long-term practice of taking Aboriginal children away from their parents and raising them in “white” environments. The film takes the form of a personal journey by the filmmaker, David MacDougall, as he spends a week on the road with three workers from Link-Up.'

'Link-Up is an Aboriginal organisation founded in 1980 by Oomera (Coral) Edwards, herself taken away from her family, to help Aboriginal people find their lost parents and other relatives. As the film shows, being reunited with one’s family is only the first step in the process. Then begins the long and often difficult stage of learning to accept both the new family members and one’s new identity.'

'The film follows Oomera and two of her colleagues (historian Peter Read, and Link-Up trainee Robyne Vincent) as they follow up several of their cases in and around Sydney. In the process, they reunite a young woman with her father. Through these visits, we learn how children were taken and placed in institutions or put out for fostering or adoption by white families and the impact this separation had on the children themselves and their families...'

'This observational documentary follows an episode in the routine life on Collum Collum cattle-station in northern New South Wales. But, as the filmmaker notes, it’s a story that could have occurred anywhere.'

'The film follows the attempts by Sunny Bancroft and other men in the Collum Collum Aboriginal community to remove a failed engine from a car and replace it with a refurbished engine from another car. It’s a familiar rural task where the expectation is to keep motors running, but for these Aboriginal men, it’s also an occasion to affirm continuing community relationships.'

'Sunny regards himself as something of a “bush mechanic”. Replacing the engine calls for a gathering of men and children “to see what happens”. It’s a time for “common sense” but also communal effort, and the calling in of local experts when needed.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

'Constructed as a series of vignettes of station life, the film focuses particularly on the relationship between Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, and a 16-year-old trainee, Shane Gordon. The episodes are linked by Sunny’s reflections on learning the hard way from experience, and from the lessons taught him by his father.'

'With intertitles to introduce each episode, the film is eloquent in its depiction of Sunny’s patient approach to managing his horses and training young Shane: “I believe in kindness to everything and everyone. If you be kind to something it’ll be kind back”.'

'Some vignettes have a Tati-like simplicity of observation, for example when young Shane tries to untangle a bridle with one hand while holding a frisky horse with the other, or when Sunny patiently attempts to get a recalcitrant paint-spraying machine to work.'

'The film is, above all, an invaluable observation of the personal dynamics within a working cattle station, and within the Aboriginal community that operates the station.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

'Examines the expectations and the life of Aboriginal stockman Bob Massey Pootchemunka, whose ambition is to see an all-Aboriginal cattle station operating at his home, Ti-Tree. Also presents Bob's nephew Eric Pootchemunka, an experienced stockman who would be station manager, and Eric's son Ian who would find on the station the challenges and companionship of a stockman's life.' (Source: TROVE)

'Gordon Smith, head of the Collum Collum Aboriginal Co-operative which operates a cattle station in northern New South Wales, and Sunny Bancroft, the station manager, are negotiating with the Aboriginal Development Corporation in Canberra for a loan. Finance is needed to stock the property with breeding cattle so that the station can become financially independent.'

'The film details the frustrations of negotiating with a distant bureaucracy while, at the same time, trying to manage the property and make it a viable business.'

'The negotiations take place mainly by telephone with occasional visits from ADC representatives. Sunny’s wife, Liz, is in charge of the homestead and hospitality whenever a visitor calls. Sunny meanwhile has to deal with training the station hands, maintaining fences, and managing the cattle that are currently held.'

'After much stone-walling by the ADC, frustrations and paper-shuffling, approval for the finance is given but then it takes even more time for the money to flow.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

'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)

'One of the major works produced by the AIAS Film Unit, this documentary observes the profound effect on an Aboriginal community of political and bureaucratic decisions made far away. Although specific to time and place, the film is timeless and universal in its observations of a conflict between an Indigenous minority and a powerful government.'

'The film presents an insider’s view of events that followed an announcement made without warning on 13 March 1978 that the Queensland state government was taking over control of the Aboriginal community of Aurukun in the north of the State, displacing the Uniting Church which had managed the Aboriginal Reserve for 70 years.'

'At the request of the community, filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall documented the events of the following weeks, as the community marshalled its supporters to resist the takeover, and a stream of lawyers, politicians, Church officials, government advisers and representatives of mainstream media arrived to talk with the Aboriginal Council and the community at large.'

'Ostensibly driven by a desire to access the mineral wealth in the Aurukun area, the state government was resistant to modifying its position, but intervention from the Federal government forced a sequence of compromises, though not always with the community’s knowledge or to their satisfaction.' (Source: Ronin Films website)

'At the request of a dying Tiwi man and his family on Melville Island, this film was made of the pukumani (bereavement) ceremony to follow his death.'

'The film observes the family through the long period of preparation for the ceremony, following age-old traditions. Dancing and face-painting are rehearsed, to the family’s satisfaction, and because “things should be right for this film”.'

'For the two days of ceremony, the community moves to Carslake Beach where a smoking ritual is held to protect the participants from spirits. The cemetery poles are erected, traditional dances are performed along with personal dances by family members. Facial and body decoration is elaborate and spectacular.'

'After saying a final farewell to the old man, the community and the family leave the Beach and return to the village where routine life resumes.'

'The film is narrated by one of the participants in the ceremony, Thomas Woody Minipini, not using a prepared script, but with his observations recorded as he watched the edited film.'

'Without narration, and without identification of individual speakers, the film provides an invaluable record of two events which occurred in the final week of January 1977, and which marked “a turning point in legal recognition of Aboriginal rights to land”.'

'The film documents discussions among traditional owners and white officials and legal advisors, at a large gathering at Batchelor, 100km south of Darwin.'

'The first event was the meeting of traditional owners of the Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory to finalise their land claim for presentation to the inquiry into the Ranger Uranium Mine. Three items were needed to present to the court to complete the case for returning ownership of the land to the traditional owners: agreement on the area of the land involved; agreement on who were the traditional owners; and agreement on how the owners will manage the land once they regain ownership.'

'This meeting then flowed into the second major event: the inaugural meeting of the Northern Land Council, a body constituted to represent traditional owners. The Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Viner, addresses the meeting and underlines the importance of the day – as the first time that traditional Aboriginal law is recognized by the Federal Government’s legal system.' (Source: Ronin Films website)