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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