IHC PressKit

8/3/2019 IHC PressKit

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We grew up behind a hedge, keeping history out,Tasmania 1952.Island Home Country

A documentary by Jeni Thornley

runnning time 52min.

PO Box 320 Newport Beach NSW 2106 Australia

ph 61 2 9918 4054 ax 61 2 9918 3753

[email protected] www.jenithornley.com

jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com


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Island Home Country is a one hour documentary about Australias colonised history and how it

impacts into the present. The lmmaker, a descendant of convicts transported to Australia in 1788,

goes on a journey to understand the disturbing history of colonial Tasmania, repressed during her

own 1950s childhood there. Filming with family, newcomer Australians and First Australiansshe explores her personal responsibility as a newcomer Australian to the First Australians and to

country. Island Home Country offers insights into how various individuals reckon with the

traumatic legacies of British colonialism and its race based policies. It is a timely document in this

historic moment of the 2008 Apology to the Stolen Generations. Island Home Countryencourages

all Australians to acknowledge the First Australians, to care for country and to work together in a

process of de-colonisation.

Sincere thanks to members of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community and their protocols in

Respecting Cultures, Working with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community, and Aboriginal Artists,Arts Tasmania Aboriginal Advisory Committee, Hobart 2004.

When the lmmaker returns to Tasmania to make a lm about her childhood

she doesnt know much about Aboriginal history, culture or colonisation.

Making this lm starts a process of understanding

learning to come into country the proper way.

Iamwhite,bornonastolenisland.

Thisismystoryofajourney

Island Home Country


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Island Home Countryssixchapters document the lmmakers own personal reckoning with history as

well as introducing other individuals who share their own process of working through issues around colonisation.

The lms structure illustrates the ethical movement of a protocols process.

2. Possession

Colonialism invades country and minds. Like the

doctrine of terra nullius which saw an empty land justthere for the taking. The lmmakers convict ancestors

were given land grants in both NSW and Tasmania.

Possession explores this land grab and its impact. It also

compares the different attitudes to land and country held

by colonisers and the First Australians. As Jim Everett

says in his interview: landscape is just another image of

the colonial construct, whereas connecting to country

goes outside of the colonial construct.

1. Amnesia

Amnesia is the forgetting of painful memories - the

repression of what really happened when Britain

colonised Australia. Some commentators describe

what happened in Tasmania as attempted genocide

or ethnic cleansing. There are many issues to be

faced today in coming to terms with this history - for

both colonisers and colonised.

3. Memory

Digging into memory, layers of history are exposed. Be-

yond the oppressive colonial history of Tasmania (such

as Martial Law 1828-1832 or the forced expulsions of the

traditional owners to the Bass Strait Islands) there is deep

memory and a living community - regeneration beyond the

colonial construct.

Chapters


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5. Encounter

After lming with her own white family in Tasmania the

lmmaker lms with Tasmanian Aboriginal community

members who communicate their own perceptions of

home, country, nation and the impact of Britains race

based policies on their life and work. The lmmaker learnsabout the ethics and protocols process to be worked

through. This process leads to an encounter with herself

as a white other. This is a place of instability. And she has

to go there.

4. Mourning

As repressed histories come to the surface, it is

confronting. A new way of understanding, of being with

the past and the present is necessary. There is mourning

to be done - sitting with the traumatic stories and feeling

empathy. There are wounds in the colonisers mind as well

as those who have been dispossessed of their country.

There is reparation to be done, as in the 2008 Apology to

the Stolen Generations and compensation.

6. ReckoningHow to make a reckoning? Well, says Jim Everett,

how do you become responsible? Its simple. Its like

the old traditions where one Aboriginal group visited

another, they waited at the borderline, at the boundary

of that tribal country until they were invited in and

the welcoming to country was really the sorting out

of responsibilities of the host group and the guests.

Returning to Sydney the lmmaker considers what she

has learnt.


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Protocols

Island Home Countryis working with protocols in Respecting Cultures, Working with the Tasmanian

Aboriginal Community and Aboriginal Artists, (Arts Tasmania Aboriginal Advisory Committee, Hobart 2004).

A signicant aspect of the lmmaking process has been process around these protocols with members of

the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. The lm evolved over four years as a dynamic and often confronting

working through of ethics. It is an ongoing process. The protocols relevant in making this lm are:

Respect

Finding the correct way for a project to be achieved with respect for the people being represented or involved

as artists will lead towards a better approach to understanding the cultural sensitivities within the Tasmanian

Aboriginal community.

AboriginalControl

Does your nominated Aboriginal community member have the authority to speak for, or on behalf of, the

project proposal? Consultation needs to occur prior to the development of projects with Aboriginal content.

Projects involving Aboriginal cultural expression must be negotiated with the owner(s) or Aboriginal community-

based organisations, as appropriate.

Communication,ConsultationandConsent

Have you received written agreement for the project? Permission needs to be obtained prior to use of stories,

images or creations that might infringe on artists and communities ownership or copyright. An agreement

outlining the conditions of consent must be obtained from the owner(s), custodians or Aboriginal community-

based organisations for projects to be initially considered and progressed.

ProperReturns

Have you considered ways in which the Tasmanian Aboriginal community can benet from the use of their

material? Issues of copyright, royalties and fees need to be discussed from the beginning of the project,

including informing the Aboriginal community and Aboriginal artists of the potential for commercial returns.

A percentage of Island Home Countrys distribution returns will go to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land & Sea Councils

Aboriginal Land Management Team (traineeship program). Purchasing the DVD supports their work.


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Island Home Country Appearing

ArundhatiRoy

The search for the individual art and how does

that link into a community, to whats important?

These are very interesting questions, ones that

you can never be comfortable with, a place

where you are always in conict.

AuntyPhyllisPitchford-nunarng

As I think of the old ones, I now understand, the pain that

they carried for the loss of their land. Though I live with

their memories of things that were wrong, as an Aboriginal

woman, I am proud, I am strong. Sad Memories,2000.

AuntieMerle

I do feel sorry for them, especially the children

that were taken away from their mothers. It was a

terrible thing to do. Why did they think they could

look after them any better than their mothers?

CliveAtkinson

The white mission masters decided to cull the

group. The full bloods were moved to a certain

area and the fairer ones to other areas. It was

a complete breakdown of the family group.

That was part of the experiment.


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Island Home Country Appearing

CousinLeigh

I dont remember anything being taught to us

about our Aboriginal past. Nothing. We were

taught British history, not even Australian history.

JimEverett-puraliameenamatta

Well, how do you become responsible? Well its

simple. Its like the old traditions where one

Aboriginal group visited another, they waited

at the borderline, at the boundary of that tribal

country until they were invited in.

Dur-eDara

Being colonised is a very subtle thing, where

you are almost ignorant of your own culture,

and you adopt another, but you were never a

rst class citizen in it.

JulieGough

Home is when you are most in yourself, of yourself.

When I feel most calm it tends to be in Tasmania.

My understanding of the past is people can move

anywhere, but still carry it with them.


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Island Home Country- AppearingJulieJanson

Resistance is still here today. Aboriginal people they

never lay down, their battle is to get the recognition

that they are the original inhabitants. The ght goes

on. Pemulyways spirit lives.

MoniLaiStorz

The most powerful experience, almost an identity

crisis, was a town with one pub and in that pub were

two toilets: one for blacks and one for whites. And I

stood between them, as Im neither black nor white.

PennyXSaxon

I am Aboriginal. It was part of the colonisation,

breeding the colour out of me. Its whats drawn

me to study and draw.

RinkiBhattacharya

Tell me about your country Australia. I know so little.

Wasnt Australia colonized by the British like India?

When did you gain independence? Are you free yet?

JanThornley

Its like it was a dream, even reading in the

books. I havent been to those places where

I can really feel that its actually real. There

are sites: were on Aboriginal land.


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Jeni ThornleyJeni Thornley is a documentary lmmaker. Her

widely distributed, award winning lms include

Island Home Country, To the Other Shore: a diary

lm about motherhood, the co-directed feature

documentary For Love or Money: a history of women

and work in Australia and Maidens: four generations

of an Australian family. Jeni also works in the lm

industry as a writer, consultant script editor,

researcher, lm lecturer and lm and video valuer

for lm archives and the Australian Governments

Cultural Gifts Program.

LinksIsland Home Country2008 http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com

To the Other Shore 1996 www.gymealily.org/other_shore.htm

Australia Daze 1988 Director Pat Fisk (Segment Director - Birth)

http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/australia-daze/

For Love or Money1983 with M. McMurchy, M. Nash and M.Oliver

http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/love-or-money/

www.roninlms.com.au/

Maidens 1978 http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/maidens

Film For Discussion 1973 with Martha Ansara and Sydney Womens Film Group

www.balladlms.com.au/index.html

Felicity Collins, Memory in Ruins: The Woman Filmmaker in Her Fathers Cinema , Screening the Past 2001

www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/rstrelease/fr1201/fcfr13a.htm

Felicity Collins, The Experimental Practice of History in the Film Work of Jeni Thornley, Screening the Past 1998

www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/rstrelease/r598/FCfr3a.htm

Producer, Writer, Director Jeni ThornleyProject & Script Consultant Sarah Gibson

Editor Karen Pearlman

Composer & Sound Designer Sharon Jakovsky

Production Supervisor Toula Anastas

Assistant Editor Andrew Corsi

Consultant Producer Megan McMurchy

Assistant to the Director Stephen Ginsborg

Post Production House Video 8 Media

Graphic Design Tim Baines

DVD Cover Design Ali ChehelnabiDVD Cover Paintings PennyX Saxon

Aboriginal Flag Harold Thomas

DVD Authoring Phil Purcell plxdvd

Website Damith Herath

Produced at UTS Sydney FASS Anandi Films 2008

IslandHomeCountryTheFilmmakingTeam


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THEEDUCATIONSHOP

www.theeducationshop.com.au

ATOM Study Guide: www.metromagazine.com.au

ANANDIFILMS61 2 9918 4054

PO Box 320 Newport Beach NSW 2106 Australia

[email protected] www.jenithornley.com

IslandHomeCountryDVDSales

FilmmakersStatementIn the midst of the history wars historian Cassandra Pybuss words spoke to me. It was time to make a reckoning growing

up white in 1950s Tasmania and knowing so little about Tasmanian Aboriginal people and culture. So in 2004 I set off to

lm with my family and whoever else I might encounter along the way. Island Home Countryis a document of that journey

- marked by the Howard era at the beginning of the lm - to the historic moment of the 2008 Apology to the Stolen

Generations at its close.

Working with protocols in Respecting Cultures, Working with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community and Aboriginal Artists

and several community members, as well as my own white family, the filmmaking process itself becomes a reckoning.

Facing repressed history is a confronting experience. As the lms participants express their stories with poetry, sadness

and humour, my own family story unfolds into a larger story about Australia then and now. While the lm is an actual

journey, it is also an inner journey into differing ideas of nation, home, country and remembering reecting on possible

questions for this post Apology era - what is our personal responsibility to history, the First Australians and to country?

Island Home Country

We have been very happy here in the territory of the Nuenone people.

Has any one of us paused to do a reckoning? CassandraPybus,Historian

Very beautiul and moving, a truly poetic work. A great labour o love.

Andrew Pike, Ronin Films

A cathartic retelling and analysis o personal memories and collective histories in the flms

movement rom past to present and back again, as Thornley seeks a resolution to the ongoingethical dilemma surrounding the occupation o Aboriginal lands.

Christine Peacock, Colourise, Brisbane International Film Festival Program 2008

Island Home Countryoers hope or refguring our damaging and exploitative relationshipswith the environment, by learning rom Indigenous notions o country and by making

a genuine approach towards meaningul reparation and reconciliation.

Kate Raynor, Island Home CountryStudy Guide, Australian Teachers o Media 2008

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