Yellow Fella (2005)
Ivan Sen
&
Camera Natura (1985)
Ross Gibson
57 minute program
Curated by Trent Walter
Ivan Sen's Yellow Fella (2005) and Ross Gibson's Camera Natura (1985) both map an imaginary of Australia using documentary styles. Yellow Fella follows a narrative arc of personal discovery as Lewis and his mother travel across the Northern Territory to visit the station where he was conceived and to search for the grave of his deceased father. Along the way we learn of settler/Murrungun relations, identity categories, the short-sightedness of western understandings of the spiritual, and the isolation Lewis experiences growing up between two cultures. Camera Natura focusses on a macro imaginary: specifically, the non-Indigenous representation of Australian land. Employing an essayist form, Gibson's film uses a bricolage of images, sounds and voices, including sequences from Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Mad Max II (1981) and Chain Reaction (1980), to consider the way in which Australian nationalism has been informed by settler imaginings of the Australian landscape.
Viewers should be aware that this film includes images and recordings of deceased people.