Byron Bay Film Festival
www.bbff.com.au
Festival opener tells Aboriginal teen story
The Opening Night film for the Byron Bay Film Festival’s 10th anniversary needed to be something special, and director J’aimee Skippon-Volke believes Zach’s Ceremony ‘fits the bill perfectly’. The feature documentary is a gripping, intimate study of the relationship between an Aboriginal father and his son, and a celebration of the ancient culture that sustains them in the modern world. It offers both a fearlessly personal focus on family life, and an expansive welcome into the ‘theatre’ of rites and rituals that still have a profound significance for Australia’s first people. Zach’s Ceremony tells the story of a city boy’s ambition to go through initiation ceremony, his teenage struggles with his father’s at times overbearing guidance, and his search for identity through reconnection with country. The film opens with home-shot footage of an earnest 10-year-old Zachariah talking about his dream, and follows him as he grows up, surrounded by the temptations of the city, vulnerable and unsure of himself. Zach returns to his dad’s country in the Gangalidda, Waanyi and Garawa lands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where he begins to find his feet. His father, Alec, grew up there, in the bush outside the settlement whose name he carries: Doomadgee. Alec didn’t go to school until he was 12, then fell in love with radio, did a degree in communications and went on to become a successful broadcaster, boxer, cultural advocate and firebrand activist. The film is ‘my concept, my brainchild, my baby,’ Alec says. ‘The idea of making a film to show the beauty of our culture was always burning away in my soul. ‘It was something I grew up wanting to do, to show in an artistic, graceful manner how unique our culture is, and also how spiritually important it is for us. ‘I wanted to include messages of our struggle and plight, but also of our strength, of how powerful we really are. ‘We’re like that sleeping elephant, and that’s why the tagline is “awaken the warrior within’.”
Alec’s original plan was to tell his own story, of a man straddling two worlds, but after he led protests following the death of his cousin Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody at Palm Island in 2004 he began to get hate mail. ‘If I was the central figure in this film, people would shut off the messages … ‘Then I became aware of this beautiful young warrior following me around – Zach – and the camera naturally gravitated towards him. ‘Telling the story through the eyes of a child means people will drop their guard, let down defences and go “hang on, this is beautiful’,” he says. ‘The father and son story is a universal one, we’ve all been there, and experienced the struggle between the old and the new. I call it the Lion King syndrome. ‘It will open up the hearts and minds of white Australia to hear what I’m trying to say here. ‘I believe that to be a real Australian you must stain yourself with the essence of this country, with the blood of our people, our stories, our dances. And our atrocities, our plight, our injustices.’ He is saying to the audience: “Take it all on board, take ownership of it and find a better way.” ‘We need to be mature enough to do that. ‘The problems of Aboriginal Australia are an “our” problem. It’s not a matter of black and white but of wrong and right. A great wrong has been done, a great injustice … we need to stand up and right those wrongs. ‘Because there is within all of us a good, a righteousness: it’s about awakening that warrior to do what’s right, what’s fair. ‘And what I’m trying to do with the film is to spark that.” Zach he says is “the new age warrior, the new Aboriginal man … he’s the future and we need to start planning for the future”. ‘Watching Zachy evolve on film … I don’t think anything like that’s been done before. I don’t think there’s been a film that is as intimate, personal and strong, as real as this one.
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‘Nothing was scripted, nothing written … the whole narration in the final scene came from Zach’s heart and mind, his perspective on where he is right now.’ The film includes footage of men’s and women’s business but everything has been walked through and approved by all the ceremonial tribal lore-keepers, Alec says. ‘All the scenes are allowed to be seen in the open. It’s part of our theatre … the oldest theatre in the world. ‘We want you to share this with us, we want you to come in here, because we believe in your heart of hearts that you are good and want to do the right thing.’ The team making the film was an international one, with Brits, a Frenchman, South African and an American filling the roles. Among them is sound mixer David White, who won an Oscar for his work on Mad Max Fury Road, and the sound design is indeed masterful, matching the stunning visuals.
The film’s beauty reflects the Doomadgee family’s passion and pride in their culture. ‘The one thing I want people to take away from this film is that we do have hope. ‘We have hope. It’s not all doom and gloom. ‘I wanted to leave people on a high, awaken and inspire them.” The film certainly had that effect on Ms Skippon-Volke. ‘For our 10th Opening Night I was looking for something pretty special, a film that sums up the heart, art and integrity of the 10 days following its screening, and of the 10 years that led to this night,’ she says. ‘Zach’s Ceremony fit the bill perfectly. Alec, Zach and Amy Doomadgee put their hearts and souls into this this film and you can’t help but feel touched and invested in this personal, strong and uplifting journey.’ The Byron Bay Film Festival runs over October 14–23. Tickets are available at the website bbff.com.au.
The Byron Shire Echo September 21, 2016 11