One hundred years ago, in 1925 Australia’s Census declared Aboriginal people a ‘dying race’. The Australian Museum commissioned three statues of ‘full blood’ Aboriginal people: a child, a man and a woman, exhibited as nameless objects to be studied. The woman was Nelly Walker, Irene Nellie Walker’s great grandmother and director Daniel King’s great, great grandmother. Now Irene is on a journey to retrace Nellie’s life and understand her times. But first she must find the descendants of the man and the boy depicted in the other statues. These people become Irene’s companions in the work to honour their ancestors. This is a timely story by one of Australia’s most exciting directors; Ngarigo and Awabakal man Daniel King, documenting his mother’s search. A profound personal window on a national story, with consequences for colonial museum collections everywhere.
Daniel is an award winning Indigenous filmmaker, editor and cinematographer with over twenty years of screen industry experience. His first drama Mirror Images was selected and screened at Rotterdam. In
2021 Daniel was the inaugural recipient of the Indigenous Documentary mid career placement with AIDC, ABC and Northern Pictures. Recent credits include Rachel Griffiths soon to be released documentary series, Great Southern Landscapes and in 2020 the feature documentary Trading Cultures for NiTV. Also for NiTV Daniel created eight short Arts documentaries for the series Our Stories. Previous credits include The Fitzroy Stars for the ABC’s Message Stick, as well as directing for Catalyst, Artworks et al for ABC TV.
