The Interior

The film considers destruction and narrative deconstruction, centred around colonisation. It looks at how white Australians are linked to a violent colonial past that must be acknowledged, and how our approach to our family histories must be considered in relation to the wider (largely untold) stories. It recognises another approach to storytelling, to family, and to the land, from an Anmatyerr perspective. The environment, namely the use and availability of water, plays a large role and touches on how farming has had a huge effect on the interior of Australia.

We want to encourage white Australians to see their privilege and their lineage, as often directly connected to colonial oppression: For children to know that many stories are left out of history books, and to appreciate the Aboriginal groups that have survived genocide and the destruction of their land. We want to celebrate the women holding many of the Anmatyerr traditions and stories, when many of the men in their community have been unable to, through illness or incarceration.

We have the opportunity for April to represent herself and her community on screen, and to become a filmmaker in her own right, when this has so far been inaccessible for her for social, historical, geographical and financial reasons. Our strategy is refined at every turn, and includes following April’s lead in how we involve the wider Anmatyerr community. Hiring an impact producer is central to our plan so that the film reaches a wide audience but an audience whom it will profoundly affect.

Our hope is that when Australian audiences see our film, they will reconsider how white narratives have romanticised and minimised the colonisation of an entire continent of people. For international audiences, we hope our film is a vanguard for more films to be made about how we approach our histories of interactions with indigenous communities across the world.

For Australian cinema, this is a crucial cultural, historical, political and social act that can be shown both narratively and reflexively. Narratively, April will tell the story about the waterhole that is important to her. This act alone lifts up the Aboriginal narrative to overtake what historically has been the status quo. Reflexively, we can document how we originally told the story, the discovery of the article and the meeting with April that turned into a collaboration in storytelling.

April, the producer, is a member of the community we are filming in and with. The community is in Ti Tree and belongs to the Anmatyerr people.

April and I (Hannah, the director) met in 2020 when I was researching the history of this conflict. She was introduced to me by an anthropologist she had done some work with. She was interested in collaborating on a film project based on this story, and given her background as an educator and ranger she is invested in sharing her culture and educating the next generation of Anmatyerr young people. April is on track to become an elder in her community, following in the footsteps of her mother Eileen and grandmother Clarrie, both who appear in the film.

She has been the primary liaison with the wider community, and has all the necessary cultural permissions to tell the stories she will tell on camera. Furthermore, she has engaged her mother and grandmother in the project who are able and willing to tell their stories.

We want to encourage conversation, especially in educational spaces. We are happy for that conversation to be intimate and even in one’s own mind.