WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE…
To be a filmmaker
We talk to filmmaker DYLAN RIVER – son of Samson and Delilah and Sweet Country director Warwick Thornton – about life BEHIND THE LENS, reverberations through the generations and HIS EXPERIENCE recording the stories of the NT’s INDIGENOUS CULTURES in the recent documentary series Tales by Light.
Nulla Nulla was the first short film I made and it’s still my favourite. I’m a big believer in telling stories close to home. That’s what I’m passionate about and what I want to do. A lot of the stories I want to tell and the films I want to make are based in the desert, in Alice Springs. It’s a way of me staying grounded at home, and being able to live in the desert here and make a career out of it. The desert is just so photogenic, and I have a different perspective on my hometown than people who just visit. With writing and directing my own projects I try to do them at home; I try to do them where I’m comfortable. But then with shooting for other people I’ve been able to travel all around Australia, to just about every single corner and town, and see a lot of this country and learn a lot about it. I’m a professional cinematographer but a hobbyist photographer. The whole idea of motion pictures for me has definitely come from still pictures. My mum would buy me cameras for my birthday when I was six or seven years old; when I was nine or 10 I got my first digital camera and it kind of just went from there. My parents are both filmmakers, so I guess it’s a
family trade; it’s sort of that idea that the butcher’s son becomes a butcher. In other careers it’s not that uncommon, but for some reason in the film industry it’s something that doesn’t happen as often and maybe that’s because of the struggles of being a filmmaker and trying to have a career and support a family; usually kids of filmmakers will run in the opposite direction. The hardest part is the struggle of being a freelancer. In some ways there’s a beauty and excitement in not knowing what’s coming up next, but sometimes financially it can become very tricky. When you’re fortunate to have a lot of work on like I am, it’s great, but then it’s trying to put that puzzle together; you’re continuously missing out on amazing jobs and opportunities because you’re locked into another job for the next three months. But at the same time it’s very rewarding and refreshing being able to go on to different things, and never feeling complacent or stale. Financially there are negatives in that. There are definitely careers out there where you would make a lot more money, but you have to keep telling yourself that we have this great opportunity to tell stories that are very important and can change the world, ultimately – change people’s perspectives. Everything I want to do as a filmmaker is to better my environment and better the people around me and make a difference. Tales by Light [a three-part series by Canon Australia aired on Network Ten showcasing the work of three photographers and themed around three vulnerable aspects of society] was interesting, a different sort of avenue, because I was asked to be a part of it as a filmmaker who’s seen on the screen as opposed to being solely behind the camera, which is where I feel way more comfortable. I was approached by the director of the series Abraham Joffe and we worked out what the episode [Preserving Aboriginal Culture: Dylan
River] would entail and what would be an accurate depiction of the things I do in my life. One of those has been my involvement with CAAMA, the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association, which my grandmother started. The story starts with my grandmother. I’m Aboriginal through my father and my grandmother. My grandmother was told not to speak her language and she grew up in a home for Aboriginal kids. And so the process of the government interfering with her life – which basically means she’s not connected to her language any more, which means she’s not connected to her culture, which means she’s not connected to the practices – had a trickle-down effect on my father, his siblings and me. And so she started CAAMA in Alice Springs, which was the first Aboriginal media association in Australia, off the back of realising the importance of culture: in continuing it, speaking it, putting it on the radio and using your language. I think that has definitely had an impact on my father and then had an impact on me. At CAAMA there’s an amazing archive of content from Indigenous people from around the country.
That archive is such an amazing resource now, and such a precious thing, because a lot of the stories and languages that are in it don’t exist anymore. This particular episode of Tales by Light took me on a journey – going out and recording stuff to add to this library that we’re creating, asking who we are and about the state of Aboriginal culture in the Northern Territory. For the episode I went back to places that I’d been
to on other shoots for documentaries and tourism commercials, places where I’ve gone in with a crew and taken something. I wanted to go back to those places and ask the people there ‘what do you want me to record for you? This is for you to keep, for you to preserve and archive; what’s important for you?’ So for example we went to visit a guy called Bill Harney in Victoria River on the edge of the Tanami
Desert, near Katherine. It’s a beautiful part of the world, escarpment country with amazing hills, and Bill was the last fully initiated elder from that area. At 86 years old, he’s coming towards the end of his life and he has a lot of stories and knowledge; a lot of things are going to go with him, things that are going to disappear from his people and culture. Bill’s mother was an Aboriginal person and his dad was a white man, and when the welfare came to take him away, during the time of the Stolen Generations, he was hidden from them; they covered him in charcoal and every time welfare came he would disappear basically. So what that meant was that he grew up on his Country, speaking his language, remembering his songs. Bill and my grandmother are a similar age but they’re totally different in their cultural connection. And so it was nice to sit down with him and record the little stuff that we could, and preserve that. For me it’s seeing the importance of being with family and staying around culture. From there we went up to a place called Bawaka in East Arnhem Land, which is a remote tip of the
country. I met up with a guy called Timmy who had helped me when I’d been up there shooting Australian tourism commercials, and again I asked ‘what can I shoot for you?’ He said we could record this whole practice of making spears and going spearing and then we could witness a crocodile ceremony. The thing about the Yolngu is that they’ve really
held onto their culture despite all the influences from the Western world, in a way that hasn’t been done in other parts of Australia. And they’re so proud of it that this idea of losing it and documenting it isn’t quite as relevant to them, the idea of it not being around doesn’t exist because it’s just so much a part of who they are. But maybe what we recorded will be really relevant in 50 years’ time to another generation down the track. I left the film feeling optimistic about the future
of Indigenous cultures in Australia, and wanted to leave the audience with the message that this is all of our responsibility. And while Australia has a long way to go, if everyone contributes it’s only going to be a greater place. For more information on Canon’s Tales by Light series, visit canon.com.au/explore/tales-by-light