Latest news with #NaidocWeek
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Seven days, seven docos: Indigenous documentaries to watch this Naidoc Week – and most are free
There are many things to do during Naidoc Week, which runs across the country from 6 July. If you're not up for venturing outside, you can still celebrate the culture and history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from the comfort of your couch. Here are seven excellent documentaries available to stream. Available on: SBS on Demand David Gulpilil provided extensive narration for this film about his home community of Ramingining in the Northern Territory, making it feel more like an audio-video essay than a standard doco. With his trademark playfulness and pluck, the Yolŋu actor recounts the history of this 'strange town', which was built by white people in a remote, illogical place, with the patronising belief by various governments that they knew what was best for his people. Ramingining becomes a microcosm for broader Indigenous experience and a springboard into various fascinating insights. Read the full review Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Available on: SBS on Demand, rent/buy A dance movie; a celebration of Indigenous Australian art and culture; a history lesson written in light, smoke and spectacle. Wayne Blair and Nel Minchin's spiritually invigorating doco about the titular dance company, which was founded in 1989, touches on many subjects including intergenerational trauma, creative tensions between old and new, and brotherhood. The latter is reflected through the story of David, Russell and Stephen Page, who were crucial figures in the company's development. Read the full review Available on: DocPlay, rent/buy This pacy portrait of the last chapter in AFL star Adam Goodes' football career deploys the style synonymous with the film-maker Asif Kapadia, being entirely composed of archival footage and pre-existing material. It's a viscerally charged, shame-inducing account of Australian racism and an uncomfortable exposé of the media, weaving in queasy moments involving commentators including Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and Sam Newman. They may not like how they're represented but it's their words and actions on display, no voiceover or talking heads needed. The film is electrically powerful. Read the full review Available on: DocPlay, rent/buy There are no words to explain the exquisite power of Gurrumul's music, which paradoxically feels both otherworldly and profoundly human: sourced from another cosmos but rising from somewhere deep inside ourselves. Paul Williams did justice to the late singer and guitarist (whose full name was Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu), a blind Gumatj man from Arnhem Land described by Rolling Stone as 'Australia's most important voice'. He gave his approval to the film just three days before he died, in July 2017, though it's far from a standard authorised doco, which are often fawning and unadventurous talking head fests. It's a must-see for fans and a great place to start for the uninitiated. Read the full review Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Available on: Netflix, ABC iview, rent/buy Brenda Matthews, a Wiradjuri woman and member of the Stolen Generations, co-directed this tenderly crafted adaptation of her memoir of the same name. Matthews' first memories were of growing up in a white family before they suddenly disappeared from her life; for a long time she assumed they abandoned her. Matthews sets out to discover the truth, triggering a personal kind of detective story, unpacking mysteries of her past and trying to find closure. Fragmentary introductory images have a dreamy residue and establish an ajar door as a key visual motif, symbolising a desire to see what lies beyond. Read the full review Available on: SBS on Demand, DocPlay Centred around the formation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972, Australia's greatest protest movie has a bright, burning fire in its belly, capturing the indefatigable spirit of resistance and justice synonymous with the protest and the ongoing fight for Aboriginal land rights and sovereignty. Some scenes carry a gooseflesh-raising visceral charge, such as footage of protesters encountering police brutality, which made its way around the globe and, in the words of a National Film and Sound Archive of Australia curator, Liz McNiven, 'fundamentally changed the way the world saw Australia'. Read the full review Available on: SBS on Demand, DocPlay, rent/buy Larissa Behrendt's film about the always compelling and often provocative artist Richard Bell bubbles with liveliness and exuberance, while also being pointed and polemical – suiting its subject to a tee. Bell is not a man who minces his words or pulls punches. 'You can say and do stuff in art and not get arrested,' he says at one point – a line that's inspiring in some senses and dreadfully sad in others. Broken up with short excerpts, performed by Bell, from his manifesto-like 2002 essay Bell's Theorem, the film does a great job feeding the qualities of the artist into the form and shape of the film. Read the full review
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Fall of an ayahuasca empire, the secrets of self-optimisers, and when digital nomad life turns sour
Top of the weekend to you all, and happy Naidoc Week to all who celebrate. Hopefully this week's first selection inspires you to seek out your nearest event. Recent attenders of Sydney's Vivid festival would have seen Vincent Namatjira's King Dingo character, pictured above, in animated form on the MCA building. Now the First Nations artist's work is UK-bound as part of an Indigenous art explosion in the UK. And Archie Moore, a Kamilaroi/Bigambul man who shared the top prize at the 2024 Venice Biennale, is getting some of the credit. How long will it take to read: Three minutes. Alberto Varela claimed his Inner Mastery venture was the first to take the ayahuasca experience multinational. Users of the Amazonian plant brew often report revisiting past trauma or repressed experiences, and Varela was warned that rolling it out on an industrial scale with minimal oversight would result in accidents. As the company grew, so did the number of accidents – and deaths. Sam Edwards tells the story of how Varela's cult-like 'anti-therapy' empire unravelled. Delusions of grandeur: In March 2020, not long after Covid had been declared a pandemic, a half-naked Varela shared a video with the findings from his latest ayahuasca trip: 'I created the coronavirus.' How long will it take to read: 14 minutes. Work your own hours at your own pace, wherever you want in the world? Been there, posted the Facebook updates from Goa. But, as Emily Bratt discovered in her own stint as a digital nomad, the reliability of a certain global coffee chain's wifi gives it a strong gravitational pull. And by the final month of her latest six-month stint on a south-east Asian island, she found herself wondering: 'What am I doing?' 'I watched friends go about their days, following through on plans made before I arrived and making new ones for after I had gone. I was like a time traveller, temporarily injected into their world from another realm.' – Bratt on the ennui of digital nomad life in Sydney. How long will it take to read: Five minutes. Who to target after you've made a water-cooler show that mirrors the travails of the Murdoch media empire? In his new film Mountainhead, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong pulls back the curtain on tech billionaires. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion The former British political staffer tells Danny Leigh why he was terrible at his old job – and how his research for Mountainhead made him feel sorry for Elon Musk. Move fast and break things: Film and television projects are typically a long haul. But not Mountainhead, which Armstrong conceived in November and premiered in May. How long will it take to read: Four minutes. Further reading: Back to the Future at 40, as told by the co-writer and one of its stars. I'll sometimes brush my teeth in the shower if I've left my run for the office a little late. Some people do this all the time – life comes at you pretty fast, after all, and they figure every second saved is a second you can pay forward to your future self. Are these so-called microefficiencies clever life hacks, or another sign of a snowed-under, productivity-obsessed society? Whatever the case, the self-optimisers Chloë Hamilton spoke to were uniformly chuffed with their time-saving innovations. Basic maths: One 'microefficient' person makes two cups of tea each time they boil the jug. If you drink eight cuppas a day, that saves you 20 minutes of jug-watching time. Across two years that adds up to more than 10 full days reclaimed. Simples. How long will it take to read: Four minutes. Enjoying the Five Great Reads email? Then you'll love our weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter, Saved for Later. Sign up here to catch up on the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture, trends and tips for the weekend. And check out the full list of our local and international newsletters.
