My country, I still call Australia home: Contemporary art from Black Australia

River of No Return (production still) 2008 Director: Darlene Johnson Photograph: Simon Smith Image courtesy: Ronin Films, Bowerbird Films opposite Samson and Delilah (production still) 2009 Director: Warwick Thornton Photograph: Mark Rogers Image courtesy: Footprint Films, Scarlett Pictures Canada, while others appropriate genre cinema to reimagine indigenous and black experience. The challenges faced by urbanised first peoples, including the desire to make meaningful connections with ancestral culture, is also a recurring subject, especially in Shane Belcourt’s Tkaronto 2007, Yves Sioui Durand’s Mesnak 2011, and Darlene Johnson’s moving portraits of Indigenous actors David Gulpilil ( Gulpilil: One Red Blood 2002) and Frances Daingangan ( River of No Return 2008). The program also includes a number of innovative documentaries that frame the lives of ordinary individuals in the retelling of national histories. First Australians 2008, by Rachel Perkins and Beck Cole, presents a comprehensive history of Australia from an Indigenous perspective, beginning in 1788 with the arrival of the British to the 1992 High Court Mabo ruling that overturned the notion of terra nullius . The events of the African American civil rights movement (1954–65) are captured in Eyes on the Prize 1987, while We Shall Remain 2009 covers critical moments in the history of the United States from the perspective of Native Americans. The powerful legacy of activist film can be seen in Merata Mita’s Patu! 1983, which features scenes of civil unrest in New Zealand when Pākehā and Māori civilians protested the 1981 South African rugby tour to show their solidarity with victims of apartheid. My Life as I Live It acknowledges that the histories and experiences of all these communities and cultures are distinct. The program doesn’t seek to conflate these into a shared narrative, but offers an opportunity to explore the resonance and the shared importance of first peoples and black filmmakers taking control of their own representation and telling their own stories. My Life as I Live It features work by Wayne Blair (Badtjala Mununjali Wakkawakka, Australia), Essie Coffey (Muruwari, Australia), Beck Cole (Warramungu/Luritja, Australia), Richard J Frankland (Gunditjamara, Australia), Darlene Johnson (Dunghutti, Australia), Catriona McKenzie (Gurnai, Australia), Rachel Perkins (Arrernte/ Kalkadoon, Australia), Ivan Sen (Kamilaroi, Australia), Brian Syron (Biripi, Australia), Warwick Thornton (Katej, Australia), Barry Barclay (Ngāti Apa, New Zealand), Merata Mita (Ngāti Pikiao/Ngāi Te Rangi, New Zealand), Lee Tamahori (Ngāti Porou, New Zealand), Taika Waititi (Te-Whānau-ā-Apanui, New Zealand), Katie Wolfe (Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Mutunga, New Zealand), Zacharias Kunuk (Inuit, Nunavik Canada), Nunavut Animation Lab (Inuit, Nunavik Canada), Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (Iñupiaq, Alaska), Kent Monkman (Cree, Canada), Shane Belcourt (Métis, Canada), Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki, Canada), Yves Sioui Durand (Huron-Wendat, Canada), Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho, United States), Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek, United States), Charles Burnett (United States), Julie Dash (United States), Spike Lee (United States), Lee Lew Lee (United States), Marlon Riggs (United States), Melvin Van Peebles (United States), John Akomfrah/Black Audio Film Collective (United Kingdom), Isaac Julien (United Kingdom) and Horace Ové (United Kingdom). 173 172