Henry Carter Hull

Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, Kama Ginkas’ astounding re-imagining highlights and builds off of the Chekhovian tension between the beauty of life and the tragedy of how it is lived. The story tells the the tragic tale of philosophy student Andrey Vasil'ich Kovrin (stage and screen star Sergey Makovetskiy).. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Kovrin decides to visit his childhood friend Tanya Pesotsky at the estate of her father. As...

When built in the 1960s, the mining town of Nhulunbuy had an instant population of about 4000, making it one of the largest towns in the Northern Territory. With the town came a hotel—and alcohol. The face of the Gove Peninsula—with its forests, swamps, rich coastline and sacred sites—was transformed overnight. So too were the lives of the Yolngu.. In 1969-1971 the Yolngu tried, unsuccessfully, to stop this invasion and exploitation of their...

This is a personal film about Dundiwuy Wanambi over the years that Ian Dunlop knew and worked with him. It is made up mainly of interviews filmed with Dundiwuy at Yirrkala and at his Marrakulu clan centre at Gurka'wuy between 1970 and 1982. This film reveals something of the struggles, and the thoughts, of one man in the face of the huge changes brought about by the coming of the Nabalco bauxite mine and the mining town of Nhulunbuy to the Gove Peninsula.....

Planning a kidnapping is not easy. For your first time, you better leave it in the hands of your lawyer.. Nominated for Best Short Film at FMK International Short Film Festival 2017

In 1976, Ian Dunlop was invited by Dundiwuy Wanambi, a leader of the Marrakulu clan, to Gurka’wuy on Trial Bay in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He wanted Film Australia to record the first major Marrakulu ceremony to be held at Gurka’wuy since its recent establishment as a clan settlement. While they were there, a baby boy died. The Madarrpa men, including the child’s father and Dundiwuy, asked for the funeral to be filmed.. Mortuary rites of the...

For several months in 1971 Dundiwuy Wanambi and his wife, Gunapa, were living in a temporary shade at Yirrkala. They were awaiting the ritual cleansing and opening of their house. They had had to leave their house after the death of Gunapa's father, who had been living with them when he died. Now Dundiwuy has asked for his house to be ritually opened so he can move back into it.. This film is a record of the first part of the opening ceremony. It...

One of the most positive aspects of traditional Aboriginal Australia today is the outstation or clan homeland movement. Throughout central and northern Australia, groups have left the large centralised government settlements and church mission stations to form small communities on their own land.. Yirrkala, in northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, used to be a church mission station and is now an Aboriginal township. Today it is one of...

1974 was a troubled time for the Yirrkala community. The Gove bauxite mine, on its doorstep, had been operating for four years. The effects of alcohol, from the newly built mining town of Nhulunbuy, were causing grave concern to the Yirrkala leaders. There was, we are told, a breakdown in social values among young people. This film shows the Yolngu's attempts to come to terms with, and solve, these problems. Despite the gathering storm clouds, Yolngu...

Narritjin Maymuru, leader of the Manggalili clan, was one of the people Ian Dunlop worked with most closely during his long term film project at Yirrkala. This is a personal and sad film about Narritjin—artist, thinker, and passionate interpreter of the world through his Yolngu beliefs.. Narritjin is sitting on the verandah of his house at Yirrkala quietly painting. It is early 1974. He talks about the troubles with the mine and alcohol amongst...

This film records the reaction of one clan leader, Narritjin Maymuru, to the coming of the Gove bauxite mine. In mid-1971 Narritjin held a mortuary ceremony at Yirrkala in memory of several relatives. He opened this ceremony to visitors from the mining town, charging them a small entrance fee. Narritjin had two objectives in mind. Firstly, he wanted to raise money so that he could move with his family away from Yirrkala and the mine and set up a small...