Her Name is Nanny Nellie

Australia’s Indigenous communities have had their stories, knowledge and artefacts stolen, misappropriated and misrepresented by colonial museums for 200 years. This is a shared experience across the country, and indeed around the world. Now at last there is a movement for truth telling which is breaking open colonial collections and archives, as First Nations people engage with these institutions to reclaim their rights, decolonise themselves and begin to heal intergenerational traumas. This is an international movement, challenging some of the most venerated institutions in the world one family, one story and one community at a time. This film is one such journey, documented by a mother and a son, and it will lead to opportunities and resources to support many other families and communities to do the same.

This film is a deeply personal Indigenous journey into the heart of Australia’s oldest national museum seeking truth and healing. This truth telling movement will benefit and change the institutions, their relationships with communities, with opportunities for growth and reconciliation. This project will provide guidelines and resources to support this change. Most of all it will support Indigenous communities to engage with museums to reclaim how they are represented and truths recognised.

Short term
-Maximise the audience, awareness and reach of the project through screenings and broadcast as outlined above.
-Increased awareness by First Nations communities of the opportunity to engage with museum collections, archives and other colonial era institutions in a process of truth telling and reclamation.
-Increased visitation for the Australian Museum both in its physical and digital sites.
Medium term
-Greater awareness and engagement with the issues raised in the documentary through school and community based screenings facilitated with the aid of the impact resources available on the film’s website. Meaningful engagement with organisations, NGOs, government bodies directly related to film’s content.
Long term
-In the mid to long term we will work to support collaborations between First Nations communities and individuals and museums and archives more generally in the activity of truth telling, healing and reconciliation.

This is a collaboration between the Australian Museum and community, led by First Nations people. The rights that inform and design this project are the essential rights that exist between family members and to control your own representation.
The aim of gaining DAF GDR status is to enable our team to attach philanthropic, government and or non-government partners that are aligned to the film’s content and purpose which will enable the financing and resourcing of the impact campaign.

First Nations Communities and Individuals
This film will demonstrate to these communities that oral and family histories and knowledge can engage with cultural and archival institutions in a highly valuable and transformative process seek justice, truth and healing.
General
This film will:
-Change the way people see and engage with museums forever
-Encourage them to renegade and revist museum collections as a place of living community and ongoing evolution
Museums
-provide a case study that demonstrates just how beneficial and generative engaging with community in truth telling can be, bringing to the museum opportunities for new relationships, partnerships, knowledge and audiences.