Rock & Roll Songline

Colonisation disconnected many Aboriginal people from their cultural knowledge, a root cause of inter-generational trauma. Once taken away from their country, many lost knowledge of kinship, survival, tools, food, shelter, medicine & farming; and the knowledge contained in traditional songs, stories & dance.
This has left a hole in many Aboriginal people’s lives, & in Carroll’s case, he went searching for something that would bring him cultural meaning. Carroll will tell the story of this search to his sons on a road trip to retrieve their songs & dances together. By bringing their songs & dances back to Country, they will be learnt again, & younger generations won’t have to go through the feelings of loss that Carroll has experienced.

Colonisation robbed many Aboriginal people of their cultural knowledge, a root cause of inter-generational trauma. By regaining this cultural knowledge, by bringing these songs, dances & stories back to Country, they will start a healing process. Carroll’s hope for the impact of this film is to inspire other, particularly urban Aboriginal people to re-connect with their culture, & start their own processes of healing & community building. He also hopes it will inspire non-indigenous people to become part of the change.

This film is significant because it will document the moment when ancient Ngarridjeri cultural knowledge is handed back to the people of the Coorong, but will also be a document of that knowledge itself, which will be archived & will available for future generations. It will be a living document, & we hope to work with AIATSIS in preserving this knowledge.

The first hope is to see attitude shifts – simply through respectful acknowledgement of a life hard lived, & the way Carroll has tried to shield his own trauma from his sons. Particularly regarding racism & dispossession.
The hope then is for people to become more interested in Aboriginal culture in general & start to reach out and discover some knowledge for themselves. There are plenty of fiction & non-fiction books, films, series, theatre, dance & all sorts of other resources for discovering Aboriginal culture.
We hope the film will create pride in Aboriginal communities for the struggle and success of one of their own, a man who created history by starting Us Mob and then reinvigorated indigenous culture. We hope the film will inspire other Aboriginal individuals and communities to reinvigorate culture.

Through Carroll’s family we have strong relationships with the Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri language nations in South Australia. Carroll intends to create community outreach through various youth and family groups to teach the lost song and dance to a new generation, and to celebrate the cultural revival.

Collaboration is at the heart of our process. Carroll, Charlie & Angus have been friends & collaborators for years, & it was Carroll that invited them to be involved with the telling of his story. With Cian joining the team, it is now a 50% indigenous / 50% non-indigenous production team with various levels & areas of experience.

One of the main goals of the film is for Carroll to have agency; to be able to tell his story in his own words. On the road-trip, he will tell this his story directly to his sons, piece by piece, in the special places where important events in his life have unfolded. This will be an emotional time for Carroll & his sons, which is why he’s working with his close

Non indigenous audience – reframing their understanding and discussion of indigenous history and issues, engaging with First nations people through festivals and events. Suggesting their children’s schools view and interact with the digital learning packages created around the film.
Indigenous audience – to celebrate cultural reclamation within their own language nations and to engage in similar cultural revival practices.