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Clip description
A car drives along a stretch of desert road, mother and father in the front, two young girls in the rear seat. The father, annoyed by the commotion of the young girls in the back, brakes hard, and the vehicle comes to a sudden halt. The mother Sue (Lisa Flanagan) asks the girls if they would like to see Nanna’s tree – the tree Nanna was born beneath. The girls decline, saying it’s only a tree. The light of day becomes night, and the lights of the township of Alice Springs dance across Penny’s (Kirsty McDonald) face. The car finally pulls up in Nanna and Poppa’s driveway.
Curator’s notes
A beautiful introduction to the world of Penny, and her initial lack of interest in the land as represented by Nanna’s tree. This moment in the film summarises beautifully the distance – concerning issues of both culture and mortality – between Nanna and Penny. Indigenous relationships to land, symbolized by the tree, become significant to Penny when it transforms from being just a tree, into the tree that personifies Nanna herself.
