Contact Documentary A look at some of the last Aborigines to meet the modern world.  Director: Martin Butler & Bentley Dean Awards: Joint winner of Australian Documentary Prize at Sydney Film Festival 2009, winner of Best Achievement in Directing For Documentary, Australian Directors Guild 2009. Yuwali Nixon was 17 when her first contact with white men was filmed in 1964. Her group, comprising 20 Martu women and children living in the Great Sandy Desert, had no idea their country had been colonised for nearly 200 hundred years until patrol officers were sent to clear the area for a series of major rocket tests. The Martu were so frightened of being killed and eaten by the white-skinned "devil men" that they headed back into the desert, only to be tracked down again before a second rocket launch later that year. Being held by the patrol officers was a rude awakening- the Martu were tied around the ankles to stop them escaping then shipped off to Jigalong mission, 200 kilometres away, ending their nomadic lifestyle. Now in her sixties, Nixon tells the story behind seeing her first 'whitefella' and being forcefully removed from her homeland. |
Dates & Locations: Haifa Tel Aviv With thanks to: |
