First Nations filmmakers selected for Kaurna Welcome to Country Video project

The Adelaide Film Festival (AFF) Screen Australia’s Indigenous Department, the South Australian Film Corporation, and the City of Adelaide have announced the five emerging First Nations filmmakers selected for the Kaurna Welcome to Country Video project.

Isaac Coen Lindsay, Adam Dixon Galea, Kiara Milera, Clem Newchurch and Damien Wanganeen are receiving paid training and mentoring, from pre-production through to delivery, to create a series of Kaurna Welcome to Country videos that will be screened before every film at the 2020 Adelaide Film Festival. The five successful applicants will work together with Living Stories to produce the videos.

This new project has been initiated by AFF as the Festival explores new ways to engage with their audiences and strengthen cultural connections and understandings and ultimately promoting reconciliation. Filming has taken place with local senior Kaurna Elder Aunty Lynette Crocker and Kaurna Leader Jack Kanya Buckskin.

The project will produce further films in 2021 with same cohort of First Nations filmmakers from this round, with scope to grow the length and content of the work. In addition to being led by First Nations staff at the SAFC and the City of Adelaide, AFF is working with Traditional Owners and a number of Kaurna Elders and Leaders to consult on and deliver this project.

The project provides a development and production pathway to support local Aboriginal filmmakers in South Australia. For Isaac, Adam, Kiara, Clem and Damien, the project builds on skills they have been developing in the screen industry. Isaac, for example, secured attachments on Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country and with DOP Allan Collins; Adam Dixon-Galea has moved from cinema programming to being mentored by SA sound recordist Laurie Chlanda; Kiara was director’s attachment on Sweet Country and wrote for ABC’s Black Comedy; Clem has written and directed two documentaries for NITV’s Our Stories series;  and Damien has a decade’s experienced as a grip assistant on live shows and productions such as Stateless and Mortal Kombat.

Taking place 14 to 25 October 2020, AFF is South Australia’s premier film event. In 2018 the festival screened more than 200 bold and exciting drama, documentary, short and VR film projects to an audience of more than 65,000 people.