Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The arts

The following clips have teachers’ notes related to this topic:

Jesus’s belly button

from the documentary The Art of Healing (G)

The artists talk about the response to the paintings on the Santa Teresa church wall. We see an Aboriginal interpretation of biblical characters such as Jesus and Moses.

Singing history

from the documentary Blood Brothers – From Little Things Big Things Grow (PG)

Carmody is flipping through records. He stops to examine a book. He tells us about the images from the book, of kangaroos and landscape drawn from within white sensibility. He shows us many images of …

A marriage of cultures

from the documentary Dreamtime, Machinetime (PG)

A brush pushes dots against an all black canvas. Trevor Nickolls tells us about the influences that shape his work. Nickolls refers to the Western machinery and Indigenous cosmology known as the Dreaming.

Music

from the television program Message Stick – Arafura Pearl (G)

Kathy Mills talks about her children and the closeness of her family and the role music plays in it. Allyson Mills talks about how her father called their attention to different sounds and rhythms.

Saltwater Freshwater

from the television program Message Stick – Arafura Pearl (G)

This clip shows archival photographs of the family. Kathy Mills tells of meeting her husband David, and how music was an element that attracted her to her husband.

World class

from the television program Message Stick – Child Artists of Carrolup (G)

This clip describes the constant disruptions to the boys’ preparation for an exhibition, and the discouragement of art as a vocation. Noel White’s daughter and excerpts from White’s diary describe the interference from …

Wandjina

from the television program Message Stick – Scotty Martin, Rodeo Boy, Don’t Say Sorry (G)

Scotty Martin shows us rock paintings of Wandjina, the ancestor who – in Scotty’s culture – is the being who created the world, giving Aborigines culture and law. Or, as Scotty puts it, 'the boss’.

Dreaming of glass

from the television program Message Stick – Wathaurong Glass (G)

The story of how a commission from Manningham City Council helped start Wathaurong Glass, with shots of the beautiful artwork hanging in buildings. A practitioner speaks of going to Milan to exhibit his artwork, where …

Starting to happen

from the television program Message Stick – Wayne’s World (G)

Wayne Blair talks about his experience as an actor and the roles that are offered to him as an Aboriginal man.

Conversations

from the television program Message Stick – Wayne’s World (G)

Wayne Blair talks about the experience of acting in the play Conversations with the Dead, and the television series Water Rats (2001), discussing the pitfalls of being an actor in work, and out of work.

Investing in the unknown

from the short film Mimi (PG)

An art auction. A woman is purchasing two pieces of art – a Mimi statue and a painting of a barramundi fish.

Do you know any ‘real Aborigines’?

from the short film Mimi (PG)

Thornton not only pokes fun at the ignorance of conservative white purchasers of Indigenous art, but also exploits the paradigm of 'authentic Aboriginality’. The same ignorance Catherine (Sophie Lee) displays in relation to the culture …

Aboriginal women in leadership

from the documentary Moodeitj Yorgas (G)

Laurel Winder talks about Gloria Brennan’s contribution to Aboriginal women’s rights. The women talk about the different treatment of Aboriginal men and Aboriginal women who take on roles of leadership to initiate change.

Stencil art

from the documentary Out of Darkness (PG)

Grahame Walsh, an expert in stencil art, explores Carnarvon Gorge to find evidence of occupation by Aboriginal people 20,000 years ago.

Maps of the country

from the documentary Painting Country (G)

Aboriginal paintings feature maps of a specific area, mythology, personal history and storytelling.

Kiwirrkurra

from the documentary Painting Country (G)

Aboriginal artists Brandy Tjungurrayi and Charlie Wallabi paint their country.

You can find more clips on this topic by using the search facility in the menu bar. You could also try browsing the tag cloud.