Tag: Walkabout

Celebrating Gulpilil: Chichester International Film Festival

August 5, 2022

The recent death of Yolŋu actor and dancer David Gulpilil was an immeasurable loss for Australian and international cinema. From the revival of feature production in the 1970s, right up to the recent rise of Indigenous cinema, his was a constant yet mercurial presence, a man whose storytelling was unparalleled and whose face could light up any screen.

Although he’ll never be forgotten in Australia, it is great to see Gulpilil’s legacy being celebrated globally, from the many obituaries in international publications, to the roll-out of Molly Reynolds’ tender documentary portrait My Name is Gulpilil (which I recently reviewed for History Australia), through to Criterion’s current celebration of his work on their North American streaming service. Thankfully, plans are also afoot to celebrate his legacy here in the UK, starting with a mini-retrospective at this month’s Chichester International Film Festival.

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Online Public Talk at University of St Andrews

November 5, 2021

EDIT (11/11): If you missed my talk, but still want to catch it, you can access a recording here.

I have been invited to deliver an online research seminar as part of the Film Studies Departmental Speaker Series at the University of St Andrews next Wednesday, November 10. I’m particularly excited to be sharing some new work on the intersections of cinematic, geological, and colonial timescales in Nic Roeg’s Walkabout, which will eventually feature in the edited collection Screening Australia: Culture and Media in Context, a long overdue book project that I’ve been working on with Dr Peter Kilroy (to be published by Peter Lang next year).

Special thanks to Dr Zöe Shacklock and everyone at St Andrews Film Studies for the invite – full details and booking link below.

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Video Essay: David Gulpilil, settler cinema, and the Indigenous body

April 1, 2021

Coronavirus has somehow allowed me to avoid conference presentations for over a year now, whilst also opening up the opportunity to attend online versions of conferences I’ve never been able to attend in person (such as the SSAAANZ conference back in December).

The theme of this year’s online BAFTSS conference – ‘time and the body’ – got me pondering ‘bodies’ in Australian cinema, and how the body politic of national cinema has shifted since the film revival of the 1970s. The result is a ten minute video essay entitled David Gulpilil, settler cinema, and the Indigenous body, below, which is really just a sketch towards some recent thinking about Australia’s settler cinema/s, and the potential problems of absorbing Indigenous cinema (and Indigenous bodies) within a national-cultural framework that still actively excludes (or harms) First Nations communities and individuals.

At this year’s conference – hosted by the University of Southampton – I’ll be discussing the video essay, and some of these ideas, in Session F, Panel 1 – ‘Postcoloniality and Indigeneity’ – on Thursday April 8, alongside my fellow panellists Patrick Adamson and Paul Janman.

Further information on this year’s BAFTSS conference (April 7-9), including registration details, can be found on the association’s website.